• Carlota Dobaño, Alfons Jiménez, Rocío Rubio, Selena Alonso, Anna Ramírez-Morros, Marta Vidal, Josep Vidal-Alaball, Anna Ruiz-Comellas, Alberto L García-Basteiro, Luis Izquierdo, Ruth Aguilar, and Gemma Moncunill.
• ISGlobal, Hospital Clínic - Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; CIBER de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: carlota.dobano@isglobal.org.
• Transl Res. 2022 Feb 1; 240: 263226-32.

AbstractAntibodies to the nucleocapsid (N) antigen are suggested to be used to monitor infections after COVID-19 vaccination, as first generation subunit vaccines are based on the spike (S) protein. We used multiplex immunoassays to simultaneously measure antibody responses to different fragments of the SARS-CoV-2 S and N antigens for evaluating the immunogenicity of the mRNA-1273 (Spykevax) and the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) vaccines in 445 health care workers. We report a >4-fold increase post-vaccination of IgG levels to the full length (N FL) and C-terminus of N (N CT) in 5.2% and 18.0% of individuals, respectively, and of IgA in 3.6% (N FL) and 9.0% (N CT) of them. The increase in IgG levels and avidity was more pronounced after Spykevax than Comirnaty vaccination (36.2% vs 13.1% for N CT, and 10.6% vs 3.7% for N FL). Data suggest the induction of cross-reactive antibodies against the N CT region after administering these S-based vaccines, and this should be taken into account when using N seropositivity to detect breakthroughs.Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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