Defeating COVID-19: The Science Behind a New ELISA for COVID-19 Seroconversion Detection Bethyl’s SARS-CoV-2 ELISA detects antibodies against the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 (S1-RBD) in serum of patients who have recently been infected with the virus. The S1-RBD is responsible for the entry of the virus into human cells via the ACE2 receptor. While SARS-CoV-2 is in some ways similar to the SARS-CoV virus that caused the SARS outbreak in 2003, the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is evolutionarily distinct1. Instead, the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 shares a 97.7% identity with the spike protein of the bat coronavirus from which it originated. The receptor binding domain S1-RBD differs from the receptor binding domain of the spike protein of SARS-CoV and several bat coronaviruses, with many amino acid substitutions and insertions. The uniqueness of S1-RBD makes it a useful target for this ELISA as antibodies against ...
Defeating COVID-19: The Science Behind a New ELISA for COVID-19 Seroconversion Detection
The recent and rapid spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has necessitated the development of new assays that are capable of detecting the presence of this virus in patient samples or evidence of recent infection. One strategy being developed are assays to detect the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in patient sera.
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