Systematic profiling of SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG epitopes at single amino acid resolution

ABSTRACT

SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG responses play critical roles for patients to recover from COVID-19, in-depth dissecting of the IgG responses on systems level is of great interest. Herein, we adopted a newly developed high-throughput epitope mapping technology (AbMap), analyzed 55 COVID-19 convalescent sera and 226 antibody samples enriched by specific proteins or peptides from these sera. We revealed three areas that are rich of IgG epitopes, two are on Spike protein but outside of RBD, and one is on Nucleocapsid protein. We identified 29 significant epitopes on Spike protein, from two of these significant epitopes, two critical epitope residues were found, i. e., D936 and P1263, which are highly related to the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 In summary, we provided the first global map of IgG binding epitopes for SARS-CoV-2 at single amino acid resolution. This map will facilitate the precise development of therapeutic antibodies and vaccines. HIGHLIGHTSO_LIA map of SARS-CoV-2 specific IgG binding epitopes at single amino acid resolution C_LIO_LITwo areas outside of RBD that are rich of significant epitopes were identified C_LIO_LIOne area rich of significant epitopes was determined on Nucleocapsid protein C_LIO_LITwo critical epitope residues (D936 and P1263) on Spike protein are highly related to the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 C_LI