by Daria Matyushkina | Varvara Shokina | Polina Tikhonova | Valentin Manuvera | Daria Kharlampieva |
Vasily Lazarev | Anna Varizhuk | Tatiana Vedekhina | Alexander Pavlenko | Georgij Arapidi | Vadim
Govorun | Federal Research and Clinical Center of Physical-Chemical Medicine; Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (National Research University)
| Scientific Research Institute for Systems Biology and Medicine
COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 is continuing to spread around the world and drastically
affect our daily life. New strains appear, and the severity of the course of the disease itself
seems to be decreasing, but even people who have been ill on an outpatient basis suffer
post-COVID consequences. Partly, it is associated with the autoimmune reactions, so
debates about the development of new vaccines and the need for vaccination/revaccination
continue. In this study we performed an analysis of the antibody response of patients with
COVID-19 to linear and conformational epitopes of viral proteins using ELISA, chip array
and western blot with analysis of correlations between antibody titer, disease severity, and
complications. We have shown that the presence of IgG antibodies to the nucleoprotein can
deteriorate the course of the disease, induce multiple direct COVID-19 symptoms, and
contribute to long-term post-covid symptoms. We analyzed the cross reactivity of antibodies
to SARS-CoV-2 with own human proteins and showed that antibodies to the nucleocapsid
protein can bind to human proteins. In accordance with the possibility of HLA presentation,
the main possible targets of the autoantibodies were identified. People with HLA alleles
A01:01; A26:01; B39:01; B15:01 are most susceptible to the development of autoimmune
processes after COVID-19.