Title
Prevalence of neutralising antibodies to hcov-nl63 in healthy adults in Australia
Date Issued
01 August 2021
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Lynch S.A.
Subbarao K.
Barber B.E.
Roulis E.V.
van der Hoek L.
McCarthy J.S.
Spann K.M.
University of Melbourne
Publisher(s)
MDPI
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of understanding the immune response to seasonal human coronavirus (HCoV) infections such as HCoV-NL63, how existing neutralising antibodies to HCoV may modulate responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the utility of seasonal HCoV as human challenge models. Therefore, in this study we quantified HCoV-NL63 neutralising antibody titres in a healthy adult population using plasma from 100 blood donors in Australia. A microneutralisation assay was performed with plasma diluted from 1:10 to 1:160 and tested with the HCoV-NL63 Amsterdam-1 strain. Neutralising antibodies were detected in 71% of the plasma samples, with a median geometric mean titre of 14. This titre was similar to those reported in convalescent sera taken from individuals 3–7 months following asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 2–3 years post-infection from symptomatic SARS-CoV-1 patients. HCoV-NL63 neutralising antibody titres decreased with increasing age (R2 = 0.042, p = 0.038), but did not differ by sex. Overall, this study demonstrates that neutralising antibody to HCoV-NL63 is detectable in approximately 71% of the healthy adult population of Australia. Similar titres did not impede the use of another seasonal human coronavirus (HCoV-229E) in a human challenge model, thus, HCoV-NL63 may be useful as a human challenge model for more pathogenic coronaviruses.
Volume
13
Issue
8
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Epidemiología
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85113446254
PubMed ID
Source
Viruses
Source funding
Department of Health, Australian Government
Sponsor(s)
Acknowledgments: Australian governments fund Australian Red Cross Lifeblood for the provision of blood, blood products, and services to the Australian community. We acknowledge Fiona H. Amante and Katharine R. Trenholme for administrative assistance. The Melbourne WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza is supported by the Australian Government Department of Health. This research was funded by QIMR Berghofer MRI.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus