Antibody titers measured by commercial assays are correlated with neutralizing antibody titers calibrated by international standards

Kung, Y.-A.; Huang, C.-G.; Huang, S.-Y.; Liu, K.-T.; Huang, P.-N.; Yu, K.-Y.; Yang, S.-L.; Chen, C.-P.; Cheng, C.-Y.; Lin, Y.-T.; Liu, Y.-C.; Chen, G.-W.; Shih, S.-R.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted the importance of an international standard (IS) for SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody titer detection, with the aim of calibrating different diagnostic techniques. In this study, IS was applied to calibrate neutralizing antibody titers (IU/mL) and binding antibody titers (BAU/mL) in response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. Serum samples were collected from participants receiving the Moderna (n = 20) and Pfizer (n = 20) vaccines at three time points: pre-vaccination, after one dose, and after two doses. We obtained geometric mean titers of 1404.16 and 928.75 IU/mL for neutralizing antibodies after two doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, respectively. These values provide an important baseline for vaccine development and the implementation of non-inferiority trials. We also compared three commercially available kits from Roche, Abbott, and MeDiPro for the detection of COVID-19 antibodies based on binding affinity to S1 and/or RBD. Our results demonstrated that antibody titers measured by commercial assays are highly correlated with neutralizing antibody titers calibrated by IS.