A High-Throughput Assay for Circulating Antibodies Directed Against the S Protein of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2

  1. Svenja Weiss
  2. Jéromine Klingler
  3. Catarina Hioe
  4. Fatima Amanat
  5. Ian Baine
  6. Suzanne Arinsburg
  7. Erna Milunka Kojic
  8. Jonathan Stoever
  9. Sean T H Liu
  10. Denise Jurczyszak
  11. Maria Bermudez-Gonzalez
  12. Viviana Simon
  13. Florian Krammer
  14. Susan Zolla-Pazner

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Abstract

More than 24 million infections with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were confirmed globally by September 2020. While polymerase chain reaction–based assays are used for diagnosis, there is a need for high-throughput, rapid serologic methods. A Luminex binding assay was developed and used to assess simultaneously the presence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)–specific antibodies in human serum and plasma. Clear differentiation was achieved between specimens from infected and uninfected subjects, and a wide range of serum/plasma antibody levels was delineated in infected subjects. All 25 specimens from 18 patients with COVID-19 were positive in the assays with both the trimeric spike and the receptor-binding domain proteins. None of the 13 specimens from uninfected subjects displayed antibodies to either antigen. There was a highly statistically significant difference between the antibody levels of COVID-19–infected and –uninfected specimens (P < .0001). This high-throughput antibody assay is accurate, requires only 2.5 hours, and uses 5 ng of antigen per test.

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  1. Version published to 10.1093/infdis/jiaa531
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.14.20059501: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: All participants provided written consent at study enrollment and agreed to sample banking and future research use of their banked biospecimen.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Figures were generated using GraphPad Prism 7.02.
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.14.20059501 on medRxiv