Decline of humoral responses against SARS-CoV-2 Spike in convalescent individuals

  1. Guillaume Beaudoin-Bussières
  2. Annemarie Laumaea
  3. Sai Priya Anand
  4. Jérémie Prévost
  5. Romain Gasser
  6. Guillaume Goyette
  7. Halima Medjahed
  8. Josée Perreault
  9. Tony Tremblay
  10. Antoine Lewin
  11. Laurie Gokool
  12. Chantal Morrisseau
  13. Philippe Bégin
  14. Cécile Tremblay
  15. Valérie Martel-Laferrière
  16. Daniel E. Kaufmann
  17. Jonathan Richard
  18. Renée Bazin
  19. Andrés Finzi

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Abstract

In the absence of effective vaccines and with limited therapeutic options, convalescent plasma is being collected across the globe for potential transfusion to COVID-19 patients. The therapy has been deemed safe and several clinical trials assessing its efficacy are ongoing. While it remains to be formally proven, the presence of neutralizing antibodies is thought to play a positive role in the efficacy of this treatment. Indeed, neutralizing titers of ≥1:160 have been recommended in some convalescent plasma trials for inclusion. Here we performed repeated analyses at one-month interval on 31 convalescent individuals to evaluate how the humoral responses against the SARS-CoV-2 Spike, including neutralization, evolve over time. We observed that receptor-binding domain (RBD)-specific IgG slightly decreased between six and ten weeks after symptoms onset but RBD-specific IgM decreased much more abruptly. Similarly, we observed a significant decrease in the capacity of convalescent plasma to neutralize pseudoparticles bearing SARS-CoV-2 S wild-type or its D614G variant. If neutralization activity proves to be an important factor in the clinical efficacy of convalescent plasma transfer, our results suggest that plasma from convalescent donors should be recovered rapidly after symptoms resolution.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.09.194639: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Ethics statement: All work was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki in terms of informed consent and approval by an appropriate institutional board.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line AuthenticationAuthentication: The presence of the desired mutations was determined by automated DNA sequencing.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-conjugated antibody specific for the Fc region of human IgG (Invitrogen) or for the Fc region of human IgM (Jackson ImmunoResearch Laboratories, inc.) were used as secondary antibodies to detect antibody binding in ELISA experiments.
    human IgG
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    293T-ACE2 cell line was previously reported (3).
    293T-ACE2
    suggested: RRID:CVCL_YZ65)
    Flow cytometry analysis of cell-surface staining: Using the standard calcium phosphate method, 10μg of Spike expressor and 2μg of a green fluorescent protein (GFP) expressor (pIRES-GFP) were transfected into 2 × 106 293T cells.
    293T
    suggested: NCBI_Iran Cat# C498, RRID:CVCL_0063)
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Samples were acquired on a LSRII cytometer (BD Biosciences, Mississauga, ON, Canada) and data analysis was performed using FlowJo vX.
    FlowJo
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)
    Statistical analyses: Statistics were analyzed using GraphPad Prism version 8.0.2 (GraphPad, San Diego, CA, (USA).
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)
    GraphPad
    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.09.194639 on bioRxiv