Rapid evaluation of neutralizing antibodies in COVID-19 patients

  1. Pingping Zhang
  2. Baisheng Li
  3. Wei Min
  4. Xiaohui Wang
  5. Zhencui Li
  6. Yong Zhao
  7. Huan Zhang
  8. Min Jiang
  9. Huanying Zheng
  10. Chao Yang
  11. Wei Zhang
  12. Le Zuo
  13. Qi Gao
  14. Zhengrong Yang
  15. Yanzhao Li
  16. Tiejian Feng
  17. Changqing Lin
  18. Qinghua Hu
  19. Tie Song
  20. Ruifu Yang

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Abstract

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic calls for a method to rapidly and conveniently evaluate neutralizing antibody (NAb) activity in patients. Here, an up-conversion phosphor technology-based point-of-care testing (UPT-POCT) and a microneutralization assay were employed to detect total antibodies against the receptor-binding domain of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 ( SARS-CoV-2) spike protein and NAb activity in COVID-19 patients’ sera, respectively, in order to determine if UPT-POCT could be used as a surrogate method for rapid evaluation of serum NAb activity in COVID-19 patients. In total, 519 serum samples from 213 recovered and 99 polymerase chain reaction re-positive (RP) COVID-19 patients were used in this report. We found that UPT-POCT reporting values correlated highly with NAb titers from 1:4 to 1:1024, with a correlation coefficient r = 0.9654 ( P < 0.001), as well as protection rate against RP (r = 0.9886, P < 0.0001). As a significant point for reducing re-positive rate, UPT-POCT values of 4.380 ± 2.677, corresponding to NAb titer of 1:64, may be appropriate as an indicator for evaluating high efficiency of protection. This study demonstrates that the quantitative lateral flow based UPT-POCT, could be used to rapidly evaluate NAb titer, which is of importance for assessing vaccine immunization efficacy, herd immunity, and screening patient plasma for high NAbs.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.01.20185447: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This research was approved by the ethics committees of Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention (QS2020060007).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableIn total, 519 serum samples from 213 recovered (98 males and 115 females) and 99 RP (58 males and 41 females) COVID-19 patients in Guangdong province of China were collected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    All sera were analyzed by quantitative immunochromatographic strip and microneutralization assay to determine total antibodies and antibody neutralizing activity, respectively.
    antibody neutralizing activity, respectively.
    suggested: None

    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 10.1101/2020.09.01.20185447v1 on medRxiv