High throughput surface plasmon resonance imaging method for clinical

Richard B.M. Schasfoort, Jos van Weperen, Margot van Amsterdam, Judicaël Parisot, Jan Hendriks, Michelle Koerselman, Marcel Karperien, Anouk Mentink, Martin Bennink, Hans Krabbe, Leon WMM Terstappen, A.H. Leontine Mulder

Abstract

Surface Plasmon Resonance imaging (SPRi) was used to determine the presence and strength of binding of IgG, IgM and IgA against the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 in sera of 102 COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. The SPRi assay simultaneously measures the antibody isotype levels and the strength of binding to the RBD of ultimate 384 patient samples in one run. It turns out that during the course of the disease, the IgG levels and strength of binding increased while generally the IgM and IgA levels go down. Recovered patients all show high strength of binding of the IgG type to the RBD protein. The anti-RBD immunoglobulins SPRi assay provides additional insights in the immune status of patients recovering from COVID-19. This new high throughput method can be applied for the assessment of the quality of the immune reaction of healthy individuals to SARS-CoV-2 and its mutants in vaccination programs.

Introduction

As indicated in the original condensed manuscript [Schasfoort, R.B.M., et al., 2021], a combined measurement of the anti-RBD IgM, IgG and IgA specific levels of COVID-19 patients is possible in a single experiment using Surface Plasmon Resonance imaging (SPRi). In contrast, an ELISA immune assay need three separate tests to obtain these values for COVID-19 patients but strength of RBD binding cannot be tested easily. The strength of binding of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies can be extracted from the SPRi data, while the levels of the antibodies are measured in high throughput for ultimate 384 patients simultaneously. This MethodsX article provides additional information on the materials and methods used that allow for the repetition of the experiments by other users of SPR instrumentation. Techniques, tricks and less successful results are also given, including 11 supporting figures for clarifying this new method.