1. Anti-membrane and anti-spike antibodies are long-lasting and together discriminate between past COVID-19 infection and vaccination
- Author
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Sara S. McCoy, Gage K. Moreno, Katarina M. Braun, Maya F. Amjadi, Srishti Gupta, David H. O’Connor, Miriam A. Shelef, Aisha M Mergaert, Thomas C. Friedrich, Nasia Safdar, S. Janna Bashar, and Ryan R Adyniec
- Subjects
Long lasting ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ,biology ,business.industry ,Public health ,Limiting ,Herd immunity ,Vaccination ,Immunology ,biology.protein ,Medicine ,Personal health ,Antibody ,business - Abstract
The consequences of past COVID-19 infection for personal health and long-term population immunity are only starting to be revealed. Unfortunately, detecting past infection is currently a challenge, limiting clinical and research endeavors. Widely available anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests cannot differentiate between past infection and vaccination given vaccine-induced anti-spike antibodies and the rapid loss of infection-induced anti-nucleocapsid antibodies. Anti-membrane antibodies develop after COVID-19, but their long-term persistence is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that anti-membrane IgG is a sensitive and specific marker of past COVID-19 infection and persists at least one year. We also confirm that anti-receptor binding domain (RBD) Ig is a long-lasting, sensitive, and specific marker of past infection and vaccination, while anti-nucleocapsid IgG lacks specificity and quickly declines after COVID-19. Thus, a combination of anti-membrane and anti-RBD antibodies can accurately differentiate between distant COVID-19 infection, vaccination, and naïve states to advance public health, individual healthcare, and research goals.
- Published
- 2021