A SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic test for resource limited settings.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of COVID-19 disease. RT-qPCR has been the primary method of diagnosis; however, the required infrastructure is lacking in many developing countries and the virus has remained a global challenge. More inexpensive and immediate test methods are required to facilitate local, regional, and national management strategies to re-open world economies.

Use of Lateral Flow Immunoassay to Characterize SARS-CoV-2 RBD-Specific Antibodies and Their Ability to React with the UK, SA and BR P.1 Variant RBDs.

Identifying anti-spike antibodies that exhibit strong neutralizing activity against current dominant circulating variants, and antibodies that are escaped by these variants, has important implications in the development of therapeutic and diagnostic solutions and in improving understanding of the humoral response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. We characterized seven anti-SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) antibodies for binding activity, pairing capability, and neutralization activity to SARS-CoV-2 and three variant RBDs via lateral flow immunoassays. The results allowed us to group these antibodies into three distinct epitope bins.