Multi-center nationwide comparison of seven serology assays reveals a SARS-CoV-2 non-responding seronegative subpopulation

An Israeli national taskforce performed a multi-center clinical and analytical validation of seven serology assays to determine their utility and limitations for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis. Serology assays from Roche, Abbott, Diasorin, BioMerieux, Beckman-Coulter, Siemens, and an in-house RBD ELISA were i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:EClinicalMedicine Vol. 29-30; p. 100651
Main Authors: Oved, Kfir, Olmer, Liraz, Shemer-Avni, Yonat, Wolf, Tamar, Supino-Rosin, Lia, Prajgrod, George, Shenhar, Yotam, Payorsky, Irina, Cohen, Yuval, Kohn, Yishai, Indenbaum, Victoria, Lazar, Rachel, Geylis, Valeria, Oikawa, Michal Tepperberg, Shinar, Eilat, Stoyanov, Evgeniy, Keinan-Boker, Lital, Bassal, Ravit, Reicher, Shay, Yishai, Ruti, Bar-Chaim, Adina, Doolman, Ram, Reiter, Yoram, Mendelson, Ella, Livneh, Zvi, Freedman, Laurence S., Lustig, Yaniv
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2020
The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd
Subjects:
Antibodies
COVID-19
IgG
Internal Medicine
Research Paper
SARS-CoV-2
Serology
Seronegative subpopulation
Validation study
COVID-19
SARS-CoV-2
Antibodies
IgG
Serology
Seronegative subpopulation
Validation study
ISSN:2589-5370, 2589-5370
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:An Israeli national taskforce performed a multi-center clinical and analytical validation of seven serology assays to determine their utility and limitations for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis. Serology assays from Roche, Abbott, Diasorin, BioMerieux, Beckman-Coulter, Siemens, and an in-house RBD ELISA were included. Negative samples from 2391 individuals representative of the Israeli population, and 698 SARS-CoV-2 PCR positive patients, collected between March and May 2020, were analyzed Immunoassays sensitivities between 81.5%-89.4% and specificities between 97.7%-100% resulted in a profound impact on the expected Positive Predictive Value (PPV) in low (<15%) prevalence scenarios. No meaningful increase was detected in the false positive rate in children compared to adults. A positive correlation between disease severity and antibody titers, and no decrease in antibody titers in the first 8 weeks after PCR positivity was observed. We identified a subgroup of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 positive patients (~5% of patients), who remained seronegative across a wide range of antigens, isotypes, and technologies. The commercially available automated immunoassays exhibit significant differences in performance and expected PPV in low prevalence scenarios. The low false-positivity rate in under 20′s suggests that cross-reactive immunity from previous CoV strains is unlikely to explain the milder disease course in children. Finding no decrease in antibody titers in the first 8 weeks is in contrast to some reports of short half-life for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The ~5% who were seronegative non-responders, using multiple assays in a population-wide manner, represents the proportion of patients that may be at risk for re-infection. Israel Ministry of Health.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:2589-5370
2589-5370
DOI:10.1016/j.eclinm.2020.100651