Persistence of serum and saliva antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 spike antigens in COVID-19 patients

By B. Isho, K. Abe, Michelle Zuo, Alainna J. Jamal, B. Rathod, Jenny H. Wang, Zhijie Li, G. Chao, Olga L. Rojas, Yeo Myong Bang and 26 more. Science immunology, 2020

775 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Saliva is an alternative biofluid to serum for detecting and monitoring IgG to SARS-CoV-2 spike and RBD antigens in COVID-19. While the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 has been extensively studied in blood, relatively little is known about the antibody response in saliva and its relationship to systemic antibody levels. Here, we profiled by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) IgG, IgA and IgM responses to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (full length trimer) and its receptor-binding domain (RBD) in serum and saliva of acute and convalescent patients with laboratory-diagnosed COVID-19 ranging from 3–115 days post-symptom onset (PSO), compared to negative controls. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses were readily detected in serum and saliva, with peak IgG levels attained by 16–30 days PSO. Longitudinal analysis revealed that anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgA and IgM antibodies rapidly decayed, while IgG antibodies remained relatively stable up to 105 days PSO in both biofluids. Lastly, IgG, IgM and to a lesser extent IgA responses to spike and RBD in the serum positively correlated with matched saliva samples. This study confirms that serum and saliva IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 are maintained in the majority of COVID-19 patients for at least 3 months PSO. IgG responses in saliva may serve as a surrogate measure of systemic immunity to SARS-CoV-2 based on their correlation with serum IgG responses.

Subfields: Dermatology, Infectious Diseases

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/75ed9e1354525b34918059d969f9a81a435e85df

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Citations in the corpus

• Adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 (2021, positive): “Encouragingly, most individuals are positive for Spike IgG and IgA in blood (referenced above), and Spike IgG and IgA levels in blood were indicative of levels in saliva (Isho et al., 2020).”
• Adeno-associated virus as a delivery vector for gene therapy of human diseases (2024, background): “378 NAbs also present the most signi fi cant challenge in redosing.”
• Early induction of functional SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells associates with rapid viral clearance and mild disease in COVID-19 patients (2021, neutral): “The kineticsof anti-RBD, anti-S1, andanti-NP IgGalsopeakedaround the 10- to 20-day period, similar to previous observations (Isho et al., 2020; Ripperger et al., 2020), with higher peak levels of antibodies against NP and Spike detected in patient P05, who succumbed to the infection.”
• Immunological memory to SARS-CoV-2 assessed for up to 8 months after infection (2021, background): “1K), consistent with observations 3 months PSO (44, 49).”