Predicting COVID-19 Severity with a Specific Nucleocapsid Antibody plus Disease Risk Factor Score
Sanjana Sen, Emily C. Sanders, Kristin Gabriel, Brian Miller, Hariny M. Isoda, Gabriela S. Salcedo, Jason E. Garrido, Rebekah P. Dyer, Rie Nakajima, Aarti Jain, Ana-Maria Caldaruse, Alicia M. Santos, Keertna Bhuvan, Delia F. Tifrea, Joni Ricks‐Oddie, Philip L. Felgner, Robert A. Edwards, Sudipta Majumdar, Gregory A. Weiss
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over two million deaths worldwide. Despite efforts to fight the virus, the disease continues to overwhelm hospitals with severely ill patients. Diagnosis of COVID-19 is readily accomplished through a multitude of reliable testing platforms; however, prognostic prediction remains elusive. To this end, we identified a short epitope from the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein and also a disease risk factor score based upon comorbidities and age. The presence of antibodies specifically binding to this epitope plus a score cutoff can predict severe COVID-19 outcomes with 96.7% specificity.