High prevalence of undocumented SARS-CoV-2 infections revealed by analysis of nucleocapsid-specific IgG responses in diagnosed and undiagnosed individuals.

ABSTRACT: Acute SARS-CoV-2 infections are not always diagnosed; hence an unknown proportion of all infections are not documented. SARS-CoV-2 can induce spike and nucleocapsid protein specific IgG antibodies, which can be detected in seroprevalence studies to identify a previous infection. However, with the introduction of vaccines containing the spike protein it is no longer possible to use spike-IgG as a marker of infection. In many countries marketed vaccines do not include the nucleocapsid protein, allowing the use of nucleocapsid-specific IgG (N-IgG) as a specific marker for previous infection. Importantly however, not all SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals develop detectable N-IgG responses and there are reports of waning of N-IgG titers in previously infected individuals, complicating the use of

SUBMITTER: Blom K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11753678 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature