Anti-membrane Antibodies Persist at Least One Year and Discriminate Between Past Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infection and Vaccination

Abstract

The consequences of past COVID-19 infection for personal and population health are emerging, but accurately identifying distant infection is a challenge. Anti-spike antibodies rise after both vaccination and infection and anti-nucleocapsid antibodies rapidly decline. We evaluated anti-membrane antibodies in COVID-19 naïve, vaccinated, and convalescent subjects to determine if they persist and accurately detect distant infection. We found that anti-membrane antibodies persist for at least a year and are a sensitive and specific marker of past COVID-19 infection. Thus, anti-membrane and anti-spike antibodies together can differentiate between COVID-19 convalescent, vaccinated, and naïve states to advance public health and research.

Machine-learning-aided multiplexed nanoplasmonic biosensor for COVID-19 population immunity profiling

“…Moreover, infection-induced anti-M peptide antibody responses are significantly higher than in naïve and vaccinated groups. This observation is consistent with previous studies 34,39 and underscores that seropositivity to M-protein peptides can help differentiate convalescent from vaccinated subjects. The slightly lower average antibody recognition difference for M_Om compared to M_WT peptide is not statistically significant.…”

“…Finally, the antibody values against M-peptides in the vaccinated group is the same as in naïve subjects due to the lack of past infections in this group and the fact that the vaccines do not contain M-protein coding mRNA sequences. Consistent with earlier findings, 34 these data suggest that the M peptide (with sequence from ref. 39) can be used as a biomarker of past infection.…”

“…The clinically known samples in this study were part of an earlier study in which a subset of the antigen-specific COVID-19 antibody levels was measured by conventional ELISA. 34 Our multiplexed nanobiosensor measurements generally concurred with the immunological signatures presented in the earlier clinical reports. For example, the presence of anti-M peptide antibodies after infection, the increase of anti-S antibodies after vaccination or infection, the decay of anti-N antibodies beyond 6 months after infection, and the vaccine-induced boost of anti-S antibodies in individuals who had COVID-19 infection were reproduced by our nanobiosensor findings.…”

“…), likely due to cross-reactivity with common cold coronavirus N protein, which was also observed in a previous study. 34 Otherwise, the low reactivity signals against all tested SARS-CoV-2 antigens are expected because the samples were collected before the onset of the pandemic.…”

SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in workers from a Colombian University Hospital

“…The duration of the humoral response to SARS-CoV-2 infection has not been precisely established; IgG-Abs appear 1 week after the onset of symptoms and peak at 25 days [ 2 ]. At 60 days, they begin to decrease and are detectable in blood, for at least 1 year after infection [ 3 , 4 ].…”