Twelve-month specific IgG response to SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain among COVID-19 convalescent plasma donors in Wuhan

Abstract
To investigate the duration of humoral immune response in convalescent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, we conducted a 12-month longitudinal study through collecting a total of 1,782 plasma samples from 869 convalescent plasma donors in Wuhan, China and tested specific antibody response. The results show that positive rate of IgG antibody against receptor-binding domain of spike protein (RBD-IgG) to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in the COVID-19 convalescent plasma donors exceeded 70% for 12 months post diagnosis. RBD-IgG kinetics displayed a gradually downward trend, the titer started to stabilize after 9 months and decreased by 68.1% compared with the 1st month. Moreover, male plasma donors produced more RBD-IgG than female plasma donors and patient age positively correlated with the RBD-IgG titer. A strong positive correlation between RBD-IgG and neutralizing antibody titers was also identified. This study is essential for understanding SARS-CoV-2-induced immune memory to develop vaccine and therapeutics.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Subject Area
- Biochemistry (9581)
- Bioengineering (7086)
- Bioinformatics (24845)
- Biophysics (12597)
- Cancer Biology (9952)
- Cell Biology (14346)
- Clinical Trials (138)
- Developmental Biology (7944)
- Ecology (12101)
- Epidemiology (2067)
- Evolutionary Biology (15984)
- Genetics (10921)
- Genomics (14735)
- Immunology (9869)
- Microbiology (23645)
- Molecular Biology (9477)
- Neuroscience (50838)
- Paleontology (369)
- Pathology (1539)
- Pharmacology and Toxicology (2681)
- Physiology (4013)
- Plant Biology (8655)
- Synthetic Biology (2391)
- Systems Biology (6427)
- Zoology (1346)