The
global pandemic caused by acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
2 (SARS-CoV-2) has affected millions of people and paralyzed healthcare
systems worldwide. Developing rapid and accurate tests to detect and
quantify anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in complex fluids is critical
to (i) track and address the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants with different
virulence and (ii) support the industrial manufacturing and clinical
administration of anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic antibodies. Conventional
immunoassays, such as lateral flow, ELISA, and surface plasmon resonance
(SPR), are either qualitative or, when quantitative, are laborious
and expensive and suffer from high variability. Responding to these
challenges, this study evaluates the performance of the Dual-Affinity
Ratiometric Quenching (DARQ) assay for the quantification of anti-SARS-CoV-2
antibodies in bioprocess harvests and intermediate fractions (i.e.,
a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell culture supernatant and a purified
eluate) and human fluids (i.e., saliva and plasma). Monoclonal antibodies
targeting the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid as well as the spike protein
of the delta and omicron variants are adopted as model analytes. Additionally,
conjugate pads loaded with dried protein were studied as an at-line
quantification method that can be used in clinical or manufacturing
laboratories. Our results indicate that the DARQ assay is a highly
reproducible (coefficient of variation ∼0.5–3%) and
rapid (<10 min) test, whose sensitivity (∼0.23–2.5
ng/mL), limit of detection (23–250 ng/mL), and dynamic range
(70–1300 ng/mL) are independent of sample complexity, thus
representing a valuable tool for monitoring anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.