Experimental Identification of Cross-Reacting IgG Hotspots to Predict Existing Immunity Evasion of SARS-CoV-2 Variants by a New Biotechnological Application of Phage Display

Abstract

Multiple pathogens are competing against the human immune response, leading to outbreaks that are increasingly difficult to control. For example, the SARS-CoV-2 virus continually evolves, giving rise to new variants. The ability to evade the immune system is a crucial factor contributing to the spread of these variants within the human population. With the continuous emergence of new variants, it is challenging to comprehend all the possible combinations of previous infections, various vaccination types, and potential exposure to new variants in an individual patient. Rather than conducting variant-to-variant comparisons, an efficient approach could involve identifying key protein regions associated with the immune evasion of existing immunity against the virus. In this study, we propose a new biotechnological application of bacteriophages, the phage display platform for experimental identification of regions (linear epitopes) that may function as cross-reacting IgG hotspots in SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins. A total of 34,949 epitopes derived from genomes of all SARS-CoV-2 variants deposited prior to our library design were tested in a single assay. Cross-reacting IgG hotspots are protein regions frequently recognized by cross-reacting antibodies in many variants. The assay facilitated the one-step identification of immunogenic regions of proteins that effectively induced specific IgG in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. We identified four regions demonstrating both significant immunogenicity and the activity of a cross-reacting IgG hotspot in protein S (located at NTD, RBD, HR1, and HR2/TM domains) and two such regions in protein N (at 197–280 and 358–419 aa positions). This novel method for identifying cross-reacting IgG hotspots holds promise for informing vaccine design and serological diagnostics for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.