A rapid, point-of-care red blood cell agglutination assay detecting antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
; 553: 165-171, 2021 05 14.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1135259
Preprint
This scientific journal article is probably based on a previously available preprint. It has been identified through a machine matching algorithm, human confirmation is still pending.
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This scientific journal article is probably based on a previously available preprint. It has been identified through a machine matching algorithm, human confirmation is still pending.
See preprint
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant morbidity and mortality. There is an urgent need for serological tests to detect antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, which could be used to assess past infection, evaluate responses to vaccines in development, and determine individuals who may be protected from future infection. Current serological tests developed for SARS-CoV-2 rely on traditional technologies such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and lateral flow assays, which have not scaled to meet the demand of hundreds of millions of antibody tests so far. Herein, we present an alternative method of antibody testing that depends on one protein reagent being added to patient serum/plasma or whole blood with direct, visual readout. Two novel fusion proteins, RBD-2E8 and B6-CH1-RBD, were designed to bind red blood cells (RBCs) via a single-chain variable fragment (scFv), thereby displaying the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on the surface of RBCs. Mixing mammalian-derived RBD-2E8 and B6-CH1-RBD with convalescent COVID-19 patient serum and RBCs led to visible hemagglutination, indicating the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 RBD. B6-CH1-RBD made in bacteria was not as effective in inducing agglutination, indicating better recognition of RBD epitopes from mammalian cells. Given that our hemagglutination test uses methods routinely used in hospital clinical labs across the world for blood typing, we anticipate the test can be rapidly deployed at minimal cost. We anticipate our hemagglutination assay may find extensive use in low-resource settings for detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Hemagglutination Tests
/
Point-of-Care Systems
/
COVID-19 Serological Testing
/
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
/
Antibodies, Viral
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
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