An adjusted ELISpot-based immunoassay for evaluation of SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses

• Main Authors: Hao Lin (Author), Jie Zhang (Author), Shaobo Dong (Author), Yaning Liu (Author), Peipei Liu (Author), George F. Gao (Author), William J. Liu (Author), Guizhen Wu (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Elsevier, 2022-06-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 2590-0536; 10.1016/j.bsheal.2022.04.005
• Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; T-cell response; ELISpot assay; Sensitivity; Specificity; Infectious and parasitic diseases; RC109-216; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270
• Source: Biosafety and Health, Vol 4, Iss 3, Pp 179-185 (2022)

Like antibody evaluation, using an effective antigen-specific T-cell immunity assessment method in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, survivors and vaccinees is crucial for understanding the immune persistence, prognosis assessment, and vaccine development for COVID-19. This study evaluated an empirically adjusted enzyme-linked immunospot assay for detecting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-specific T-cell immunity in 175 peripheral blood samples from COVID-19 convalescents and healthy individuals. Results of viral nucleic acid were used as the gold standard of infection confirmation. The SARS-CoV-2M peptide pool had higher sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 71% for the single peptide pool. For combined peptide pools, the parallel evaluation (at least one of the peptide pools is positive) of total peptide pools (S1&S2&M&N) had higher sensitivity (up to 93%), and the serial evaluation (all peptide pools are positive) of total peptide pools had higher specificity (up to 100%). The result of the serial evaluation was better than that of the parallel evaluation as a whole. The detection efficiency of M and N peptide pool serial evaluation appeared the highest, with a sensitivity of 80% and specificity of 93%. This T-cell immunity detection assay introduced in this report can achieve high operability and applicability. Therefore, it can be an effective SARS-CoV-2-specific cellular immune function evaluation method.