Landscape of humoral immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 in patients with COVID-19 disease and the value of antibody testing.
RT-PCR, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2), antibody tests, Diagnosis of COVID-19
A new pandemic is ongoing in several parts of the world. The agent responsible is the newly emerged severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The symptoms associated with this virus are known as the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). In this review, we summarize the published data on virus specific antibodies in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 disease, patients recovered from the disease and the individuals who are asymptomatic with SARS-CoV-2 infections. The review highlights the following: i) an adjunct role of antibody tests in the diagnosis of COVID-19 in combination with RT-PCR; ii) status of antibodies from COVID-19 convalescent patients to select donors for plasma therapy; iii) the potential confounding effects of other coronaviruses, measles, mumps and rubella in antibody testing due to homology of certain viral genes; and iv) the role of antibody testing for conducting surveillance in populations, incidence estimation, contact tracing and epidemiologic studies.
Sundarasamy Mahalingam, John Peter, Vaniambadi S. Kalyanaraman, Alagarsamy Srinivasan, Ziyang Xu, Devivasha Bordoloi, Michelle Ho, Kar Muthumani