Estimation of SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Activity and Protective Immunity in Different Vaccine Types Using Three Surrogate Virus Neutralization Test Assays and Two Semiquantitative Binding Assays Targeting the Receptor-Binding Domain

Abstract

Estimating neutralizing activity in vaccinees is crucial for predicting the protective effect against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As the plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) requires a biosafety level 3 facility, it would be advantageous if surrogate virus neutralization test (sVNT) assays and binding assays could predict neutralizing activity. Here, five different assays were evaluated with respect to the PRNT in vaccinees: three sVNT assays from GenScript, Boditech Med, and SD Biosensor and two semiquantitative binding assays from Roche and Abbott. The vaccinees were subjected to three vaccination protocols: homologous ChAdOx1, homologous BNT162b2, and heterologous administration. The ability to predict a 50% neutralizing dose (ND50) of >= 20 largely varied among the assays, with the binding assays showing substantial agreement (kappa, similar to 0.90) and the sVNT assays showing relatively poor performance, especially in the ChAdOx1 group (kappa, 0.33 to 0.97). The ability to predict an ND50 value of >= 118.25, indicating a protective effect, was comparable among different assays. Applying optimal cutoffs based on Youden's index, the kappa agreements were greater than 0.60 for all assays in the total group. Overall, relatively poor performance was demonstrated in the ChAdOx1 group, owing to low antibody titers. Although there were intra-assay differences related to the vaccination protocols, as well as interassay differences, all assays demonstrated fair performance in predicting the protective effect using the new cutoffs. This study demonstrates the need for a different cutoff for each assay to appropriately determine a higher neutralizing titer and suggests the clinical feasibility of using various assays for estimation of the protective effect.

IMPORTANCE The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to last, despite high COVID-19 vaccination rates. As many people experience breakthrough infection after prior infection and/or vaccination, estimating the neutralization activity and predicting the protective effect are major issues of concern. However, since standard neutralization tests are not available in most clinical laboratories, it would be beneficial if commercial assays could predict these aspects. In this study, we evaluated the performance of three sVNT assays and two semiquantitative binding assays targeting the receptor-binding domain with respect to the PRNT. Our results suggest that these assays could be used for predicting the protective effect by adjusting the cutoffs.