1. SARS-CoV-2 Antigenemia as a Confounding Factor in Immunodiagnostic Assays: A Case Study
- Author
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George Sourvinos, Sotirios Tsiodras, Christos Kittas, Demetrios Vassilakos, L. Chatzis, Vassilis G. Gorgoulis, Konstantinos Belogiannis, Nefeli Lagopati, Venetia A Florou, Athanasios G. Tzioufas, Aikaterini Polyzou, Stefanos Ferous, and Paraskevi C. Fragkou
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,antigenemia ,Case Report ,non-responders ,Viremia ,Context (language use) ,medicine.disease_cause ,Microbiology ,Asymptomatic ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Immune system ,antibody ,Virology ,Medicine ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Seroconversion ,seroconversion ,Coronavirus ,immunoprevalence ,viremia ,biology ,SARS-CoV-2 ,immunodiagnostics ,business.industry ,COVID-19 ,virus diseases ,medicine.disease ,QR1-502 ,030104 developmental biology ,Infectious Diseases ,Humoral immunity ,Immunology ,biology.protein ,ELISA ,medicine.symptom ,Antibody ,business - Abstract
Humoral immunity has emerged as a vital immune component against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Nevertheless, a subset of recovered Coronavirus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) paucisymptomatic/asymptomatic individuals do not generate an antibody response, constituting a paradox. We assumed that immunodiagnostic assays may operate under a competitive format within the context of antigenemia, potentially explaining this phenomenon. We present a case where persistent antigenemia/viremia was documented for at least 73 days post-symptom onset using ‘in-house’ methodology, and as it progressively declined, seroconversion took place late, around day 55, supporting our hypothesis. Thus, prolonged SARS-CoV-2 antigenemia/viremia could mask humoral responses, rendering, in certain cases, the phenomenon of ‘non-responders’ a misnomer.
- Published
- 2021
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