Cross-reactivity of neutralizing antibody and its correlation with circulating T follicular cells in recovered COVID-19 individuals

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Abstract

Seroconversion appeared early after COVID-19 onset, and convalescent sera therapy benefit some critical patients. However, neutralizing antibody (nAb) in convalescents is largely unknown. We found that 97.01% (65/67) of COVID-19 convalescents maintained IgG antibodies with high binding and avidity to SARS-CoV-2 spike subunits S1 and S2, and 95.52% (64/67) had neutralization activity against SARS-CoV-2 pesudovirus, one month after discharge (median ID 50 , 2.75; IQR, 2.34-3.08). Some sera exhibited cross-neutralization against SARS-CoV (76.12%), MERS-CoV (17.91%), or both (10.45%). Interestingly, individuals recovered from severe disease (severe group) had nAbs with binding and neutralization titers higher than non-severe group. Severe group appeared a rapid increase of lymphocytes and a high proportion of circulating CXCR3 + Tfh cells. Interestingly, the later were spike-specific and positively correlated with SARS-CoV-2 nAb titers. All subjects had no autoimmunity. Our findings provide novel insights into nAb responses in COVID-19 convalescents and facilitate treatment and vaccine development for SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.12.20129460: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of The Center Hospital of Shaoyang (V1. 0, 20200301), Hunan Province, China.
    Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from each participant.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Spike subunits S1- and S2-specific antibodies were detected by using horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-conjugated anti-human IgG and 3,3’,5,5’-tetramethylbenzidine substrate (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA).
    S2-specific
    suggested: None
    anti-human IgG
    suggested: None
    Healthy sera were used as negative controls, and monoclonal antibody specific for the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (anti-RBD/SARS-CoV-2; made in the lab, unpublished data) was used as positive control.
    anti-RBD/SARS-CoV-2
    suggested: None
    Of which, anti-dsDNA and anti-ANA antibodies were detected by ELISA (Zeus Scientific, Inc. New Jersey, USA), while anti-nucleosomes, histones, SmD1, U1-SnRNP, SS-A/Ro60KD, SS-A/Ro52 KD, SS-B/La, Sc1-70, CENP-B, Jo-1, and anti-PO/38KD were examined by Line Immuno Assay (LIA), according to the manufacturer’s protocols (HUMAN GmbH, Magdeburg, Germany).
    anti-dsDNA
    suggested: None
    anti-ANA
    suggested: (MyBioSource Cat# MBS702259, RRID:AB_10889535)
    Jo-1
    suggested: None
    anti-PO/38KD
    suggested: None
    The fluorescently labeled antibodies used in this study were BUV737 mouse anti-human CD4 (SK3) and PE mouse anti-human CXCR3 (1C6) (BD Biosciences), FITC mouse anti-human PD-1 (EH12.2H7) (BioLegend), and PE-eFluor 610 mouse anti-human CXCR5 (MU5UBEE) (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA).
    anti-human CD4
    suggested: None
    anti-human CXCR3
    suggested: None
    anti-human PD-1
    suggested: None
    anti-human CXCR5
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Naïve Huh7 cells were added to each well and incubated in 5% CO2 at 37°C for 24 hours.
    Huh7
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The luminescence was measured, and the ID50 values were calculated with non-linear regression, i.e. log (inhibitor) vs. response (four parameters), using GraphPad Prism 8 (GraphPad Software, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA).
    GraphPad
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)
    The fluorescently labeled antibodies used in this study were BUV737 mouse anti-human CD4 (SK3) and PE mouse anti-human CXCR3 (1C6) (BD Biosciences), FITC mouse anti-human PD-1 (EH12.2H7) (BioLegend), and PE-eFluor 610 mouse anti-human CXCR5 (MU5UBEE) (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA).
    BD Biosciences
    suggested: (BD Biosciences, RRID:SCR_013311)
    All data were analyzed with FlowJo 10.0 software (Tree Star, San Carlos, CA, USA).
    FlowJo
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)
    Analyses of the data were done by SPSS version 26 and GraphPad Prism version 8.0.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)
    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.