Serological Approaches for COVID-19: Epidemiologic Perspective on Surveillance and Control.

Cheryl Yi-Pin Lee,Lisa F P Ng,Laurent Renia,Raymond T P Lin

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2020.00879

Abstract

Since December 2019, the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has garnered global attention due to its rapid transmission, which has infected more than two million people worldwide. Early detection of SARS-CoV-2 is one of the crucial interventions to control virus spread and dissemination. Molecular assays have been the gold standard to directly detect for the presence of viral genetic material in infected individuals. However, insufficient viral RNA at the point of detection may lead to false negative results. As such, it is important to also employ immune-based assays to determine one's exposure to SARS-CoV-2, as well as to assist in the surveillance of individuals with prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Within a span of 4 months, extensive studies have been done to develop serological systems to characterize the antibody profiles, as well as to identify and generate potentially neutralizing antibodies during SARS-CoV-2 infection. The vast diversity of novel findings has added value to coronavirus research, and a strategic consolidation is crucial to encompass the latest advances and developments. This review aims to provide a concise yet extensive collation of current immunoassays for SARS-CoV-2, while discussing the strengths, limitations and applications of antibody detection in SARS-CoV-2 research and control.

Highlights

The ongoing pandemic, which originates from a newly emerged coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was discovered in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province in December 2019 [1]
SARS-CoV-2 is a single stranded, positive sense RNA virus that belongs to the Coronaviridae family of the betacoronavirus genus [2]
It has a genome size of ∼30 kilobases that encodes for Current Immunoassays for SARS-CoV-2 multiple structural proteins comprising the spike (S), the envelope (E), the membrane (M), and the nucleocapsid (N), as well as non-structural proteins [3] (Figure 1)

Summary

Introduction

The ongoing pandemic, which originates from a newly emerged coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was discovered in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province in December 2019 [1]. Due to rapid transmission globally, there are more than two million laboratory-confirmed human infection cases, with a few hundred thousand deaths across 210 countries and territories (https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/ situation-reports/). This unprecedented crisis led to a worldwide effort to rapidly characterize the immunobiology of SARS-CoV-2, while mitigating further spread of this deadly pathogen. SARS-CoV-2 is a single stranded, positive sense RNA virus that belongs to the Coronaviridae family of the betacoronavirus genus [2]. As the reported incubation period varies among different patient cohorts, it is often difficult to ascertain the actual day of onset, and infected subjects who are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic may go undetected [5,6,7]

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Conclusion