A rapid test for neut­ral­iz­ing SARS-CoV-2 antibodies

We developed a com­pet­it­ive chemi­lu­min­es­cence immun­oas­say that enables the detec­tion of neut­ral­iz­ing SARS-CoV-2 anti­bod­ies within 7 min. The neut­ral­iz­ing anti­bod­ies bind to the viral receptor bind­ing domain (RBD) and inhibit the bind­ing to the human angiotensin-con­vert­ing enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor. This com­pet­it­ive bind­ing inhib­i­tion test was char­ac­ter­ized with a set of 80 samples, which could all be clas­si­fied cor­rectly. The assay res­ults favor­ably com­pare to those obtained with a more time-intens­ive ELISA-based neut­ral­iz­a­tion test and a com­mer­cial sur­rog­ate neut­ral­iz­a­tion assay. Our test could fur­ther be used to detect indi­vidu­als with a high total IgG anti­body titer, but only a low neut­ral­iz­ing titer, as well as for mon­it­or­ing neut­ral­iz­ing anti­bod­ies after vac­cin­a­tions. This effect­ive per­form­ance in SARS-CoV-2 seromon­it­or­ing delin­eates the poten­tial for the test to be adap­ted to other dis­eases in the future.

Klüp­fel J, Paßreiter S, Rumpf M, Christa C, Holthoff HP, Ungerer M, Lohse M, Knolle P, Protzer U, Els­ner M, Seidel M (2023) Auto­mated detec­tion of neut­ral­iz­ing SARS-CoV-2 anti­bod­ies in minutes using a com­pet­it­ive chemi­lu­min­es­cence immunoassay.
Anal Bioanal Chem. 415:391-404
DOI: 10.1007/s00216-022-04416-6