Abstract

Serodiagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is impeded by immunological cross-reactivity among the human coronaviruses (HCoVs): SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, OC43, 229E, HKU1, and NL63. Here we report the identification of humoral immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 peptides that may enable discrimination between exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and other HCoVs. We used a high-density peptide microarray and plasma samples collected at two time points from 50 subjects with SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by qPCR, samples collected in 2004–2005 from 11 subjects with IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-1, 11 subjects with IgG antibodies to other seasonal human coronaviruses (HCoV), and 10 healthy human subjects. Through statistical modeling with linear regression and multidimensional scaling we identified specific peptides that were reassembled to identify 29 linear SARS-CoV-2 epitopes that were immunoreactive with plasma from individuals who had asymptomatic, mild or severe SARS-CoV-2 infections. Larger studies will be required to determine whether these peptides may be useful in serodiagnostics.

Highlights

  • Serodiagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is impeded by immunological cross-reactivity among the human coronaviruses (HCoVs): SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, OC43, 229E, HKU1, and NL63

  • Each HCoV peptide array is divided into 12 subarrays, with each subarray comprising ~172,000 12-amino acid nonredundant linear peptides that tile the proteomes of known HCoVs with 11 amino acid overlap[4,5,6,7] (Supplementary Table 1)

  • We examined the immunoreactivity of 100 plasma samples collected at two timepoints from 50 COVID-19 patients with active or recent SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by SARS-CoV-2 qPCR of nasal swabs (Groups 1, 2, and 3)

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Summary

Introduction

Serodiagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is impeded by immunological cross-reactivity among the human coronaviruses (HCoVs): SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV, OC43, 229E, HKU1, and NL63. A total of 132 plasma samples were tested using eleven 12-plex HCoV peptide arrays to identify 29 linear SARS-CoV-2 epitopes that were immunoreactive with plasma from individuals who had asymptomatic, mild, or severe SARS-CoV-2 infections.

Results
Conclusion

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