Anti-S and Anti-N Antibody Responses of COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients

Abdel-Ellah Al-Shudifat; Mohammad Al-Tamimi; Rand Dawoud; Mohammad Alkhateeb; Amel Mryyian; Anas Alahmad; Manal M Abbas; Arwa Qaqish

doi:10.3390/vaccines11091398

Anti-S and Anti-N Antibody Responses of COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients

Vaccines (Basel). 2023 Aug 22;11(9):1398. doi: 10.3390/vaccines11091398.

Authors

Abdel-Ellah Al-Shudifat¹, Mohammad Al-Tamimi², Rand Dawoud³, Mohammad Alkhateeb^{3

4}, Amel Mryyian³, Anas Alahmad^{3

4}, Manal M Abbas^{5

6}, Arwa Qaqish^{7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Internal and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan.
² Department of Microbiology, Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan.
³ Faculty of Medicine, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan.
⁴ Department of Internal Medicine, King Hussein Cancer Center, Amman 11941, Jordan.
⁵ Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Faculty of Allied Medical Sciences, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19328, Jordan.
⁶ Pharmacological and Diagnostic Research Lab, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman 19328, Jordan.
⁷ Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Science, The Hashemite University, Zarqa 13133, Jordan.
⁸ Department of Cellular Therapy and Applied Genomics, King Hussein Cancer Center, Amman 11941, Jordan.

Abstract

The long-term immunoglobulin responses of COVID-19 vaccinations is important to determine the efficacy of these vaccinations. This study aimed to investigate and compare the long-term immunoglobulin response of COVID-19 vaccination recipients, using anti-S IgG, anti-N IgG, and IgM titer levels. This study included 267 participants, comprising individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 through PCR testing (n = 125), and those who received the Pfizer (n = 133), Sinopharm (n = 112), AstraZeneca (n = 20), or Sputnik (n = 2) vaccines. Female participants comprised the largest share of this study (n = 147, 55.1%). This study found that most participants had positive IgG antibodies, with 96.3% having anti-S IgG and 75.7% having anti-N IgG. Most participants (90.3%) tested negative for anti-N IgM antibodies. Sinopharm-vaccinated individuals exhibited a notably lower rate of positive anti-S IgG (93.8%) and a significantly higher rate of positive anti-N IgG antibodies (91%). Anti-N IgG levels were significantly correlated with the number of prior COVID-19 infections (p = 0.015). Specifically, individuals with a history of four COVID-19 infections had higher anti-N IgG titers (14.1 ± 1.4) than those with only one experience of COVID-19 infection (9.4 ± 7.2). Individuals who were infected with COVID-19 after receiving the vaccine demonstrated higher levels of anti-N IgG, exhibiting a 25% increase in mean titer levels compared to those who were infected prior to vaccination. There was a statistically significant association between anti-N IgG positivity with age (p = 0.034), and smoking status (p = 0.006) of participants. Participants younger than 20 and older than 60 showed the highest positivity rate of anti-N (>90%). Smokers had a low positivity rate of anti-N (68.8%) compared to nonsmokers (83.6%). In conclusion, this study demonstrated that most COVID-19 vaccination recipients had positive IgG antibodies, with differences in the long-term immunoglobulin response depending on the type of vaccine administered and occurrence of COVID-19 infection.

Keywords: AstraZeneca; COVID-19 vaccines; Pfizer–BioNTech; Sinopharm; anti-N; anti-S; antibodies.

Grants and funding

na/This research was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan