SARS-CoV-2 virus is the causative agent of COVID-19. The disease progresses in a variety of ways. It varies from infection without clinical symptoms, to severe disease that can lead to death. The main clinical symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, cough, and fatigue, as well as shortness of breath and chest tightness. The aim of our study was to investigate the possible causal relationship between clinical manifestation of COVID-19 and the specific immune response to individual viral proteins (N, S1, S2 in RBD). In addition, we were interested in whether the course of the disease (mild, moderate, serious, or critical) is affected by the concentration of antibodies against individual viral proteins or the dynamic antibody immune response. The study included 79 patients with COVID-19. We found that in the first sample, which was on average obtained 2 weeks after a confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2, 64.6% of patients had IgG antibodies, 79.7% of patients had IgA antibodies, and 60.8% had IgM antibodies against SASR-CoV-2. We also found that all antibodies appear soon after infection and that most likely the strength of the antibody response directly affects the severity of the disease. We found that the concentration of antibodies against RBD and N can affect the course of the disease. No differences in dynamics were found for most viral epitopes in most antibodies. The expected antibody dynamic was observed in the case of IgA antibodies specific against the N protein. Furthermore, we have shown that in addition to a strong immune response, gender and age also greatly impact the course of the disease and its clinical manifestation.
|