A Peptide-Based Assay Discriminates Individual Antibody Response to the COVID-19 Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA Vaccine

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech has been shown to be capable of developing an excellent antibody response against the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein, with good production of neutralizing antibodies. Herein, we analyzed differences in the antibody response elicited by inoculation of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine through a peptide-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that utilizes synthetic peptides derived from the spike protein in the immuno-adsorbent phase. Immunoreactivity against synthetic peptides was measured at different time points from vaccination and was also correlated with the SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing capacity. Our results indicate that all vaccinated subjects except one show reactive antibodies to at least one peptide at both 30 and 60 days after injection of the first dose. Only one of the 19 analyzed subjects showed no antibody response toward any of the selected peptides, consistently with a lower neutralizing capacity. More importantly, our data showed that the antibody response elicited by inoculation of the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine appears to be qualitatively individual, both in the type of recognized peptides and in the temporal persistence of the antibody response. Together with previous published data, our findings suggest that for effective pandemic control, it is important to constantly monitor the antibody protection in the population, and the assay described here could be a valid tool for this purpose.

Automated summary

The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine induces excellent antibody response against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, with individual differences in antibody response and the importance of monitoring antibody protection in the population for effective pandemic control.