Unidad de Investigación, Hospital Universitario de Canarias-FIISC, Ofra s/n, 38320, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Instituto de Tecnologías Biomédicas, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Universidad Fernando Pessoa Canarias, 35450, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
Unidad de Investigación, Hospital Universitario de Canarias-FIISC, Ofra s/n, 38320, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2021 Mar 5;543:45-49. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.01.073. Epub 2021 Jan 22.
In order to control the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection, serious progress has been made to identify infected patients and to detect patients with a positive immune response against the virus. Currently, attempts to generate a vaccine against the coronavirus are ongoing. To understand SARS-CoV-2 immunoreactivity, we compared the IgG antibody response against SARS-CoV-2 in infected versus control patients by dot blot using recombinant viral particle proteins: N (Nucleocapsid), M (Membrane) and S (Spike). In addition, we used different protein fragments of the N and S protein to map immune epitopes. Most of the COVID-19 patients presented a specific immune response against the full length and fragments of the N protein and, to lesser extent, against a fragment containing amino acids 300-685 of the S protein. In contrast, immunoreactivity against other S protein fragments or the M protein was low. This response is specific for COVID-19 patients as very few of the control patients displayed immunoreactivity, likely reflecting an immune response against other coronaviruses. Altogether, our results may help develop method(s) for measuring COVID-19 antibody response, selectivity of methods detecting such SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and vaccine development.
为了控制由 SARS-CoV-2 感染引起的 COVID-19 大流行，在识别感染患者和检测对病毒呈阳性免疫反应的患者方面取得了重大进展。目前，正在努力开发针对冠状病毒的疫苗。为了了解 SARS-CoV-2 的免疫反应性，我们通过斑点印迹法使用重组病毒粒子蛋白（N（核衣壳）、M（膜）和 S（刺突））比较了感染患者与对照患者的 IgG 抗体对 SARS-CoV-2 的反应。此外，我们使用 N 和 S 蛋白的不同蛋白片段来绘制免疫表位。大多数 COVID-19 患者对全长 N 蛋白和 N 蛋白片段以及对包含 S 蛋白氨基酸 300-685 的片段表现出特异性免疫反应，但对其他 S 蛋白片段或 M 蛋白的免疫反应较弱。这种反应是 COVID-19 患者特有的，因为很少有对照患者表现出免疫反应性，这可能反映了对其他冠状病毒的免疫反应。总之，我们的结果可能有助于开发用于测量 COVID-19 抗体反应的方法、检测此类 SARS-CoV-2 抗体的方法的选择性和疫苗开发。
