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The Cnr of Naples, in collaboration with the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute of Rome and the Italian biotech company Takis, has developed a new serological test for Covid-19, quick and easy to do. The new survey method, which, like other tests of this type, is intended to detect the neutralizing antibodies against the coronavirus in the bloodit might be performed by most laboratoriesallowing large-scale investigations, also to plan personalized vaccination strategies and to test new molecules against Covid-19. The results of the development of the test were published in the journal Frontiers Immunology.
The need for new methods
The quantity, type and duration of the antibodies anti-Sars-cov-2 neutralizers in the blood of vaccinated or infected people are important data for predicting the degree of protection against coronavirus by the body e estimate the evolution of immune response in case of symptomatic disease. At the same time, the continuous emergence of new variants which present mutations in viral proteins – and which therefore may not be recognized by the systems that identify antibodies for previous strains – is a growing obstacle to the determination of anti-Sars-cov-2 antibody levels. Yet, the evaluation of the antibody response against the different variants of the coronavirus, whether following vaccination or a natural infection, is crucial for optimal management of the pandemicalso to understand how new emerging variants might evade the immune response in the general population. Not only that: having standard and easy-to-apply methods for measuring neutralizing antibodies could allow a better estimate of the effectiveness of different vaccines and therefore, in the future, allow for a more personalized approach to vaccination strategies.
The achievement of these objectives is hampered by a further problem: generally these tests are based on the replication of live viruses, which require a laboratory with high bio-safety measures (called Bls-3), specialized personnel and well-established protocols for isolating and manipulating viruses; since not all laboratories have these characteristics, this means one less ability to analyze the antibody response on a large scale. To overcome these obstacles, several have been proposed over time neutralization tests based on pseudovirusesgenetically modified viruses that do not have the infectious genes of the pathogen from which they come, so as to lower their level of danger and allow handling in laboratories with levels of biosecurity lower.
The test and the study
Based on this principle, researchers have developed a neutralization test antibody based on one pseudoviruses containing the Sars-cov-2 spike protein gene, comparing it with live virus-based serological tests, which currently represent the gold standard for determining the antibody response. Specifically, the scientists tested the two modes of investigation on both blood samples negative for anti-Sars-cov-2 antibodies (taken before the pandemic or belonging to people who have not been vaccinated and have never contracted the virus) is on samples taken in people vaccinated or recovered from Covid-19: in both cases the results of the two types of tests were concordantdemonstrating the reliability of the new method.
In addition, the serological test allows quite simply implementation with mutated spike proteinspaving the way for the development of safe tests against new variants. In conclusion, the article reads, the study demonstrated that this method is applicable in multiple conditions, representing a valid alternative for measuring the antibody response and making it easier to use on a large scale.
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