scholarly journals Evaluation of SARS‐CoV‐2 neutralizing antibodies using a CPE‐based colorimetric live virus micro‐neutralization assay in human serum samples

2020 ◽  
Vol 92 (10) ◽  
pp. 2096-2104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Manenti ◽  
Marta Maggetti ◽  
Elisa Casa ◽  
Donata Martinuzzi ◽  
Alessandro Torelli ◽  
...  
Diagnostics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 994
Author(s):  
Ahmed Majdi K. Tolah ◽  
Sayed S. Sohrab ◽  
Khaled Majdi K. Tolah ◽  
Ahmed M. Hassan ◽  
Sherif A. El-Kafrawy ◽  
...  

The unusual cases of pneumonia outbreak were reported from Wuhan city in late December 2019. Serological testing provides a powerful tool for the identification of prior infection and for epidemiological studies. Pseudotype virus neutralization assays are widely used for many viruses and applications in the fields of serology. The accuracy of pseudotype neutralizing assay allows for its use in low biosafety lab and provides a safe and effective alternative to the use of wild-type viruses. In this study, we evaluated the performance of this assay compared to the standard microneutralization assay as a reference. The lentiviral pseudotype particles were generated harboring the Spike gene of SARS-CoV-2. The generated pseudotype particles assay was used to evaluate the activity of neutralizing antibodies in 300 human serum samples from a COVID-19 sero-epidemiological study. Testing of these samples resulted in 55 positive samples and 245 negative samples by pseudotype viral particles assay while microneutralization assay resulted in 64 positive and 236 negative by MN assay. Compared to the MN, the pseudotyped viral particles assay showed a sensitivity of 85.94% and a specificity of 100%. Based on the data generated from this study, the pseudotype-based neutralization assay showed a reliable performance for the detection of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and can be used safely and efficiently as a diagnostic tool in a biosafety level 2 laboratory.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Hani Abidi ◽  
Kehkeshan Imtiaz ◽  
Akbar Kanji ◽  
Shama Qaiser ◽  
Erum Khan ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Individuals recovering from COVID-19 are shown to have antibodies against the Spike and other structural proteins. Antibodies against Spike have been shown to display viral neutralization. However, not all antibodies against Spike have neutralizing ability and some may be cross-reactive. There is a need for easy-to-use SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing assays that allow the determination of virus neutralizing activity in sera of individuals. Here we describe a PCR-based micro-neutralization assay that can be used to evaluate the viral neutralization titers of serum from SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals. Methods The SARS-CoV-2 strain used was isolated from a nasopharyngeal specimen of a COVID-19 case. The limiting dilution method was used to obtain a 50% tissue culture infective dose (TCID50) of Vero cells. For the micro‐neutralization assay, 19 serum samples, with positive IgG titers against Spike receptor binding domain (RBD) were tested. After 24 hours, infected cells were inspected for the presence of the cytopathic effect, then lysed and RNA RT-PCR of SARS-CoV-2. The Ct values were used to calculate percent neutralization/inhibition of SARS-CoV-2. Results Out of 19 samples, 13 samples gave 100% neutralization at all dilutions, while 4 samples gave neutralization at lower dilution, while one sample did not give any neutralization. The correlation between RBD OD and neutralization potential was found to be statistically correlated. Conclusion We describe a rapid RT-PCR based SARS-CoV-2 microneutralization assay for detection of neutralizing antibodies. This can effectively be used to test anti-viral activity of serum antibodies for investigation of both disease-driven and vaccine-induced responses.


2020 ◽  
pp. 112937
Author(s):  
Livia Mazzini ◽  
Donata Martinuzzi ◽  
Inesa Hyseni ◽  
Linda Benincasa ◽  
Eleonora Molesti ◽  
...  

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0259551
Author(s):  
Syed Hani Abidi ◽  
Kehkashan Imtiaz ◽  
Akbar Kanji ◽  
Shama Qaiser ◽  
Erum Khan ◽  
...  

Background Individuals recovering from COVID-19 are known to have antibodies against the Spike and other structural proteins. Antibodies against Spike have been shown to display viral neutralization. However, not all antibodies against Spike have neutralizing ability although they may be cross-reactive. There is a need for easy-to-use SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing assays for the determination of virus-neutralizing activity in sera of individuals. Here we describe a PCR-based micro‐neutralization assay that can be used to evaluate the viral neutralization titers of serum from SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals. Methods The SARS-CoV-2 strain used was isolated from a nasopharyngeal specimen of a COVID-19 case. The limiting dilution method was used to obtain a 50% tissue culture infective dose (TCID50) of Vero cells. For the micro‐neutralization assay, 19 serum samples, with positive IgG titers against Spike Receptor-Binding Domain (RBD) were tested. After 24 hours, infected cells were inspected for the presence of a cytopathic effect, lysed and RNA RT-PCR conducted for SARS-CoV-2. PCR target Ct values were used to calculate percent neutralization/inhibition of SARS-CoV-2. Results Out of 19 samples, 13 samples gave 100% neutralization at all dilutions, 1 sample showed neutralization at the first dilution, 4 samples showed neutralization at lower dilutions, while one sample did not demonstrate any neutralization. The RBD ODs and neutralization potential percentages were found to be positively correlated. Conclusion We describe a rapid RT-PCR-based SARS-CoV-2 microneutralization assay for the detection of neutralizing antibodies. This can effectively be used to test the antiviral activity of serum antibodies for the investigation of both disease-driven and vaccine-induced responses.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Fenwick ◽  
Priscilla Turelli ◽  
Celine Pellaton ◽  
Alex Farina ◽  
Jeremy Campos ◽  
...  

The detection of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies in the serum of an individual indicates prior infection or vaccination. However, it provides limited insight into the protective nature of this immune response. Neutralizing antibodies recognizing the viral Spike are far more revealing, yet their measurement traditionally requires virus- and cell-based systems that are costly, time-consuming, poorly flexible and potentially biohazardous. Here we present a cell-free quantitative neutralization assay based on the competitive inhibition of trimeric SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein binding to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) viral receptor. This high-throughput method matches the performance of the gold standard live virus infectious assay, as verified with a panel of 206 seropositive donors with varying degrees of infection severity and virus-specific IgG titers, achieving 96.7% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Furthermore, it allows for the parallel assessment of neutralizing activities against multiple SARS-CoV-2 Spike variants of concern (VOC), which is otherwise unpredictable even in individuals displaying robust neutralizing antibody responses. Profiling serum samples from 59 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, we found that although most had high activity against the 2019-nCoV Spike and to a lesser extent the B.1.1.7 variant, only 58% could efficiently neutralize a Spike derivative containing mutations present in the B.1.351 variant. In conclusion, we have developed an assay that has proven its clinical relevance in the large-scale evaluation of effective neutralizing antibody responses to VOC after natural infection and that can be applied to the characterization of vaccine-induced antibody responses and of the potency of human monoclonal antibodies.


Author(s):  
Livia Mazzini ◽  
Donata Martinuzzi ◽  
Inesa Hyseni ◽  
Giulia Lapini ◽  
Linda Benincasa ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTA newly identified coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2, emerged in December 2019 in Hubei Province, China, and quickly spread throughout the world; so far, it has caused more than 18 million cases of disease and 700,000 deaths. The diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is currently based on the detection of viral RNA in nasopharyngeal swabs by means of molecular-based assays, such as real-time RT-PCR. Furthermore, serological assays aimed at detecting different classes of antibodies constitute the best surveillance strategy for gathering information on the humoral immune response to infection and the spread of the virus through the population, in order to evaluate the immunogenicity of novel future vaccines and medicines for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 disease. The aim of this study was to determine SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies in human serum samples by means of different commercial and in-house ELISA kits, in order to evaluate and compare their results first with one another and then with those yielded by functional assays using wild-type virus. It is important to know the level of SARS-CoV-2-specific IgM, IgG and IgA antibodies in order to predict population immunity and possible cross-reactivity with other coronaviruses and to identify potentially infectious subjects. In addition, in a small sub-group of samples, we performed a subtyping Immunoglobulin G ELISA. Our data showed an excellent statistical correlation between the neutralization titer and the IgG, IgM and IgA ELISA response against the receptor-binding domain of the spike protein, confirming that antibodies against this portion of the virus spike protein are highly neutralizing and that the ELISA Receptor-Binding Domain-based assay can be used as a valid surrogate for the neutralization assay in laboratories which do not have Biosecurity level-3 facilities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 678-684
Author(s):  
Biljana Nigović ◽  
Jakov Vlak

Background: High uric acid serum level, hyperuricemia, is now associated with many diseases such as gout, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, coronary artery disease and diabetes. Febuxostat is a novel selective xanthine oxidase inhibitor approved for the treatment of hyperuricemia. Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a first analytical method for the simultaneous determination of febuxostat and uric acid. Methods: An unmodified boron-doped diamond electrode provided concurrent quantitation of drug at low levels and uric acid, which has clinical significance in the diagnosis and therapy of hyperuricemia, at relatively high concentrations. The direct square-wave voltammetric method was applied to the analysis of both analytes in human serum samples. Results: Under the optimized conditions, the linear response of peak current on febuxostat concentration was achieved in the range from 7.5 × 10-7 to 3 × 10-5 M, while uric acid showed two linear ranges of 5 × 10-6 - 5 × 10-5 M and 5 × 10-5 - 2 × 10-4 M. The method was successfully utilised for quantification of both analytes in human serum samples. Good recoveries were obtained without interference from common inorganic cations and anions as well as glucose, dopamine, ascorbic and folic acids at concentrations expected in physiological conditions. Conclusion: The great benefits of developed method are fast analysis (only 7.5 s for run), low cost and simplicity of performance.


1990 ◽  
Vol 126 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. N. Thakur ◽  
R. Coles ◽  
A. Sesay ◽  
B. Earley ◽  
H. S. Jacobs ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT A previously described in-vitro rat granulosa cell plasminogen activator bioassay for FSH has been modified and applied in the assay of human serum. This modified method consists of exposing the diethylstilboestrol-stimulated granulosa cells from 25- to 26-day-old rats to FSH or test substance for 3·5 h in wells coated with 125I-labelled fibrinogen and treated with thrombin. Following stimulation with FSH, the dose-related production of plasminogen activator was measured as the degree of 125I-labelled fibrinolysis in the presence of added plasminogen. Using the urinary FSH/LH bioassay reference preparation as the assay standard, the useful range of the assay was 0·3–15IU/l, with an assay sensitivity of 0·3 IU/l. As determined using purified glycoprotein hormone preparations, the assay was highly specific for FSH. The minor degree of FSH bioactivity measured in some of the hormone preparations was accounted for by the amount of FSH contamination in these preparations. To abolish interference caused by unknown serum factors, we heat-treated the serum samples for 15 min at 56 °C before the assay. The results indicated that neither immunoreactivity nor bioactivity was affected by this treatment. Furthermore, heat-treated human sera gave responses parallel to the standard curve at the three dose levels (2, 4 and 8 μl) studied. We used this bioassay to estimate the FSH-like bioactivity in 15 human serum samples. The estimates of immunoreactive FSH in these samples correlated well with the corresponding FSH bioactivity (r = 0·745, n = 15 and P < 0·05). The results indicate that with this sensitive and rapid (completed within 24 h) bioassay, it should be possible to measure FSH bioactivity in heat-treated human serum samples. Journal of Endocrinology (1990) 126, 159–168


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