Laboratory diagnostics of B-cell immunity after SARS-CoV-2 and other viral infections

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Abstract

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced the development of clinical laboratory diagnostics and showed the importance of comprehensive study of immune status to various infectious agents, in particular to SARS-CoV-2, in addition to PCR for pathogen identification. The study of humoral immunity, based on the detection of antibodies, without determining the cellular immunity assessment does not allow to assess the immune response, which is important for detecting its intensity and prognosis of the disease during infection. Assessing the potential of memory B cells to proliferate into antibody-secreting cells and quantifying the specific antibodies secreted by them will enable evaluation of the duration of B-cell memory.

Aim. To explore the current possibilities for diagnosing cellular immunity, with a focus on the B-cell component, after SARS-CoV-2 infection and other viral infections.

Materials and methods. A review study was conducted based on data from foreign (PubMed, Oxford Medicine Online, Penn Libraries, Springer) and Russian literature (e-Library), mainly from 2020 to 2025, on the methods of determining and maintaining the duration of B-cell memory to COVID-19 after vaccination and previous infection, as well as other viral infections.

Conclusion. Finding an accessible platform and methods for the detection of specific B-cell memory to SARS-CoV-2 and other infections that can be utilized in clinical diagnostic laboratories is an important challenge at the present time. The detection of a specific memory B-cell clone would allow characterizing immune status, improving retrospective long-term diagnosis of COVID-19, evaluating the efficacy of vaccine prophylaxis and predicting the effectiveness of the antagonistic response in subsequent exposure to infection. Test systems capable of characterizing B-lymphocytes by determining the clonal affiliation of the B-cell receptor and the proliferation potential of memory B-cells for subsequent secretion of specific immunoglobulins are poorly distributed in the world and absent in Russia. At the same time, the possibility of detecting memory B-cell clones for COVID-19 and other infections, capable of rapidly synthesizing a large number of specific antibodies, is of crucial importance in the development of the disease in case of repeated contact with the pathogen.

About the authors

Anton V. Lobov

Scientific and Medical Laboratory “Aliquot” LLC; I.I. Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums

Author for correspondence.
Email: lobov-anton@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4703-5863
Russian Federation, Build. 5, 23 Kashirsky Proezd, Moscow 115201; 5A Maly Kazenny Pereulok, Moscow 105064

Ekaterina A. Pogodina

Scientific and Medical Laboratory “Aliquot” LLC; I.I. Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums

Email: lobov-anton@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-0421-3287
Russian Federation, Build. 5, 23 Kashirsky Proezd, Moscow 115201; 5A Maly Kazenny Pereulok, Moscow 105064

Polina I. Ivanova

Scientific and Medical Laboratory “Aliquot” LLC; I.I. Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums

Email: lobov-anton@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3481-2854
Russian Federation, Build. 5, 23 Kashirsky Proezd, Moscow 115201; 5A Maly Kazenny Pereulok, Moscow 105064

Evgeny G. Golovnya

Scientific and Medical Laboratory “Aliquot” LLC

Email: lobov-anton@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3446-9176
Russian Federation, Build. 5, 23 Kashirsky Proezd, Moscow 115201

Ekaterina V. Sorokina

I.I. Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Serums

Email: lobov-anton@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1188-6578
Russian Federation, 5A Maly Kazenny Pereulok, Moscow 105064

Irina Zh. Shubina

N.N. Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology, Ministry of Health of Russia

Email: lobov-anton@list.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9374-3158
Russian Federation, 24 Kashirskoe Shosse, Moscow 115522

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