Sex disparities and neutralizing antibody durability to SARS-CoV-2 infection in convalescent individuals

Markmann, Alena J.; Giallourou, Natasa; Bhowmik, D. Ryan; Hou, Yixuan J.; Lerner, Aaron; Martinez, David R.; Premkumar, Lakshmanane; Root, Heather; van Duin, David; Napravnik, Sonia; Graham, Stephen D.; Guerra, Quique; Raut, Rajendra; Petropoulos, Christos J.; Wrin, Terri; Cornaby, Caleb; Schmitz, John; Kuruc, JoAnn; Weiss, Susan; Park, Yara; Baric, Ralph; de Silva, Aravinda M.; Margolis, David M.; Bartelt, Luther A.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has now caused over 2 million deaths worldwide and continues to expand. Currently, much is unknown about functionally neutralizing human antibody responses and durability to SARS-CoV-2. Using convalescent sera collected from 101 COVID-19 recovered individuals 21–212 days after symptom onset with forty-eight additional longitudinal samples, we measured functionality and durability of serum antibodies. We also evaluated associations between individual demographic and clinical parameters with functional neutralizing antibody responses to COVID-19. We found robust antibody durability out to six months, as well as significant positive associations with the magnitude of the neutralizing antibody response and male sex. We also show that SARS-CoV-2 convalescent neutralizing antibodies are higher in individuals with cardio-metabolic comorbidities.