Landscape of humoral immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 in patients with COVID-19 disease and the value of antibody testing

• Published in: Heliyon 2021-04, Vol.7 (4), p.e06836-e06836, Article e06836
• Main Authors: Mahalingam, Sundarasamy, Peter, John, Xu, Ziyang, Bordoloi, Devivasha, Ho, Michelle, Kalyanaraman, Vaniambadi S., Srinivasan, Alagarsamy, Muthumani, Kar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antibody tests; Diagnosis of COVID-19; Review; RT-PCR; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)
• ISSN: 2405-8440; 2405-8440
• DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06836

A new pandemic is ongoing in several parts of the world. The agent responsible is the newly emerged severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The symptoms associated with this virus are known as the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). In this review, we summarize the published data on virus specific antibodies in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 disease, patients recovered from the disease and the individuals who are asymptomatic with SARS-CoV-2 infections. The review highlights the following: i) an adjunct role of antibody tests in the diagnosis of COVID-19 in combination with RT-PCR; ii) status of antibodies from COVID-19 convalescent patients to select donors for plasma therapy; iii) the potential confounding effects of other coronaviruses, measles, mumps and rubella in antibody testing due to homology of certain viral genes; and iv) the role of antibody testing for conducting surveillance in populations, incidence estimation, contact tracing and epidemiologic studies. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2); Diagnosis of COVID-19; Antibody tests; RT-PCR.