Novel Competitive ELISA Utilizing Trimeric Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2, Could Identify More Than RBD-RBM Specific Neutralizing Antibodies in Hybrid Sera

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Since the initiation of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a need for the development of diagnostic methods to determine the factors implicated in mounting an immune response against the virus. The most promising indicator has been suggested to be neutralizing antibodies (nAbs), which mainly block the interaction between the Spike protein (S) of SARS-CoV-2 and the host entry receptor ACE2. In this study, we aimed to develop and optimize conditions of a competitive ELISA to measure serum neutralizing titer, using a recombinant trimeric Spike protein modified to have six additional proline residues (S(6P)-HexaPro) and h-ACE2. The results of our surrogate Virus Neutralizing Assay (sVNA) were compared against the commercial sVNT (cPass, Nanjing GenScript Biotech Co., Nanjing City, China), using serially diluted sera from vaccinees, and a high correlation of ID50–90 titer values was observed between the two assays. Interestingly, when we tested and compared the neutralizing activity of sera from eleven fully vaccinated individuals who subsequently contracted COVID-19 (hybrid sera), we recorded a moderate correlation between the two assays, while higher sera neutralizing titers were measured with sVNA. Our data indicated that the sVNA, as a more biologically relevant model assay that paired the trimeric S(6P) with ACE2, instead of the isolated RBD-ACE2 pairing cPass test, could identify nAbs other than the RBD-RBM specific ones.

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