Journal
FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.724763
Keywords
SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; asymptomatic infections; IgG; antibody response; neutralizing antibody
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Science and Technology [2020YFC0841400]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [82025001, 82072265]
- Guangdong Science and Technology Fund [2020B1111300001]
- Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health Open Project (China Evergrande Group) [2020GIRHHMS04]
- 111 project [D18010]
- Zhong Nanshan Medical Foundation of Guangdong Province [ZNSA-2020001]
- Guangzhou Basic Research Program on People's Livelihood Science and Technology [202002020005]
- Zhongnanshan Medical Foundation of Guangdong Province [ZNSA-2020001, ZNSA-2021005]
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Characterizing the serologic features of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is crucial for diagnostics and control. This study found that asymptomatic infections exhibit weaker overall antibody responses, primarily inducing IgG antibody responses. Anti-S2-IgG shows better sensitivity in identifying asymptomatic infections early after infection compared to anti-RBD-IgG.
Characterizing the serologic features of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection is imperative to improve diagnostics and control of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In this study, we evaluated the antibody profiles in 272 plasma samples collected from 59 COVID-19 patients, consisting of 18 asymptomatic patients, 33 mildly ill patients and 8 severely ill patients. We measured the IgG against five viral structural proteins, different isotypes of immunoglobulins against the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) protein, and neutralizing antibodies. The results showed that the overall antibody response was lower in asymptomatic infections than in symptomatic infections throughout the disease course. In contrast to symptomatic patients, asymptomatic patients showed a dominant IgG-response towards the RBD protein, but not IgM and IgA. Neutralizing antibody titers had linear correlations with IgA/IgM/IgG levels against SARS-CoV-2-RBD, as well as with IgG levels against multiple SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins, especially with anti-RBD or anti-S2 IgG. In addition, the sensitivity of anti-S2-IgG is better in identifying asymptomatic infections at early time post infection compared to anti-RBD-IgG. These data suggest that asymptomatic infections elicit weaker antibody responses, and primarily induce IgG antibody responses rather than IgA or IgM antibody responses. Detection of IgG against the S2 protein could supplement nucleic acid testing to identify asymptomatic patients. This study provides an antibody detection scheme for asymptomatic infections, which may contribute to epidemic prevention and control.
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