New York: A team of US researchers have developed a simple, glucose-meter-based test that can be used to accurately monitor our own antibody levels to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over-the-counter Covid tests can quickly show whether a person is infected with SARS-CoV-2. But if you have a positive result, there’s no equivalent at-home test to assess how long you’re protected against reinfection, said researchers from Johns Hopkins University, MIT and Harvard University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is because vaccines against Covid infection can guard against future infections for a while, but it’s unclear exactly how long that protection lasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A good indication of immune protection is a person’s level of antibodies, but the gold standard measurement — the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) — requires expensive equipment and specialised technicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new readily available glucose meter, described in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, are easy to use and can be integrated with remote clinical services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the study the team wanted to see whether producing a fusion protein consisting of both invertase and a detection antibody would work in an assay that would allow SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels to be read with a glucose meter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers designed and produced a novel fusion protein containing both invertase and a mouse antibody that binds to human immunoglobulin (IgG) antibodies. They showed that the fusion protein bound to human IgGs and successfully produced glucose from sucrose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next, the team made test strips with the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein on them. When dipped in Covid-19 patient samples, the patients’ SARS-CoV-2 antibodies bound to the spike protein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding the invertase\/IgG fusion protein, then sucrose, led to the production of glucose, which could be detected by a glucose meter. They validated the test by performing the analysis with glucose meters on a variety of patient samples, and found that the new assay worked as well as four different ELISAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers said that the method can also be adapted to test for SARS-CoV-2 variants and other infectious diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York: A team of US researchers have developed a simple, glucose-meter-based test that can be used to accurately monitor our own antibody levels to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19. Over-the-counter Covid tests can quickly show whether a person is infected with SARS-CoV-2. But if you have a positive result, there’s no equivalent at-home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":274859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}