ABSTRACT
There remains an urgent need for assays to quantify humoral protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 to understand the immune responses of COVID-19 patients, evaluate efficacy of vaccine candidates in clinical trials, and conduct large-scale epidemiological studies. The plaque-reduction neutralization test (PRNT) is the reference-standard for quantifying antibodies capable of neutralizing SARS-CoV-2. However, the PRNT is logistically demanding, time-consuming, and requires containment level-3 facilities to safely work with live virus. In contrast, a surrogate virus neutralization test (sVNT) manufactured by Genscript is a quick and simple assay that detects antibodies that inhibit the RBD-ACE2 interaction, crucial for virus entry into host cells. In this study, we evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and cross-reactivity of the sVNT compared with the PRNT using both 50% and 90% SARS-CoV-2 neutralization as a reference-standard. We found that the sVNT provides a high-throughput screening tool prior to confirmatory PRNT testing for the evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Immunity, neutralization test, 【초록키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Efficacy, immune response, antibody, clinical trials, cross-reactivity, sensitivity, specificity, protective immunity, virus neutralization test, virus entry, vaccine candidate, Neutralizing, SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies, COVID-19 patients, SARS-CoV-2 neutralization, Live virus, PRNT, Interaction, humoral, host cells, epidemiological studies, sVNT, plaque-reduction neutralization test, RBD-ACE2, detect, evaluate, inhibit, provide, time-consuming, 【제목키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, virus neutralization test, Coronavirus-2, acute respiratory syndrome,