Open AccessAntibody Screening Results for Anti-Nucleocapsid Antibodies Toward the Development of a Lateral Flow Assay to Detect SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Protein
Author(s) -
David M. Cate,
Joshua D. Bishop,
Helen Hsieh,
Veronika Glukhova,
Luis F. Alonzo,
H. Gleda Hermansky,
Brianda Barrios-Lopez,
Benjamin D. Grant,
Caitlin Anderson,
Ethan Spencer,
Samantha Kuhn,
Ryan Gallagher,
Roberto Rivera,
Crissa Bennett,
Samantha A. Byrnes,
John T. Connelly,
Puneet Dewan,
David S. Boyle,
Bernhard H. Weigl,
Kevin P. Nichols
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acs omega
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.779
H-Index - 40
ISSN - 2470-1343
DOI - 10.1021/acsomega.1c01253
Subject(s) - antibody , analyte , covid-19 , virology , nitrocellulose , computational biology , biology , chemistry , computer science , chromatography , immunology , medicine , biochemistry , disease , pathology , membrane , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The global COVID-19 pandemic has created an urgent demand for large numbers of inexpensive, accurate, rapid, point-of-care diagnostic tests. Analyte-based assays are suitably rapid and inexpensive and can be rapidly mass-produced, but for sufficiently accurate performance, they require highly optimized antibodies and assay conditions. We used an automated liquid handling system, customized to handle arrays of lateral flow (immuno)assays (LFAs) in a high-throughput screen, to identify anti-nucleocapsid antibodies that will perform optimally in an LFA. We tested 1021 anti-nucleocapsid antibody pairs as LFA capture and detection reagents with the goal of highlighting pairs that have the greatest affinity for the nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2 within the LFA format. In contrast to traditional antibody screening methods (e.g., ELISA, bio-layer interferometry), the method described here integrates real-time reaction kinetics with transport in, and immobilization directly onto, nitrocellulose. We have identified several candidate antibody pairs that are suitable for further development of an LFA for SARS-CoV-2.