Epitope-Specific Response of Human Milk Immunoglobulins in COVID-19 Recovered Women

The breastfeeding of infants by mothers who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 has become a dramatic healthcare problem. The WHO recommends that infected women should not abandon breastfeeding; however, there is still the risk of contact transmission. Convalescent donor milk may provide a defense against...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Pathogens (Basel) 2021-06, Vol.10 (6), p.705
Main Authors:	Bobik, Tatyana V., Kostin, Nikita N., Skryabin, George A., Tsabai, Polina N., Simonova, Maria A., Knorre, Vera D., Mokrushina, Yuliana A., Smirnov, Ivan V., Kosolapova, Julia A., Vtorushina, Valentina V., Inviyaeva, Evgeniya V., Polushkina, Evgeniya, Petrova, Ulyana L., Levadnaya, Anna V., Krechetova, Lyubov V., Shmakov, Roman G., Sukhikh, Gennadiy T., Gabibov, Alexander G.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Antibodies Antigens Babies Breast feeding Breast milk breastfeeding Breastfeeding & lactation Childbirth & labor class A immunoglobulins class G immunoglobulins class M immunoglobulins Communication Coronaviruses COVID-19 Disease transmission Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay Epitopes human milk Immunity (passive) Immunoglobulins Immunology Infants Infections Medical research Milk Mothers Pandemics Pregnancy Proteins SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Viral infections Womens health
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Summary:	The breastfeeding of infants by mothers who are infected with SARS-CoV-2 has become a dramatic healthcare problem. The WHO recommends that infected women should not abandon breastfeeding; however, there is still the risk of contact transmission. Convalescent donor milk may provide a defense against the aforementioned issue and can eliminate the consequences of artificial feeding. Therefore, it is vital to characterize the epitope-specific immunological landscape of human milk from women who recovered from COVID-19. We carried out a comprehensive ELISA-based analysis of blood serum and human milk from maternity patients who had recovered from COVID-19 at different trimesters of pregnancy. It was found that patients predominantly contained SARS-CoV-2 N-protein-specific immunoglobulins and had manifested the antibodies for all the antigens tested in a protein-specific and time-dependent manner. Women who recovered from COVID-19 at trimester I–II showed a noticeable decrease in the number of milk samples with sIgA specific to the N-protein, linear NTD, and RBD-SD1 epitopes, and showed an increase in samples with RBD conformation-dependent sIgA. S-antigens were found to solely induce a sIgA1 response, whereas N-protein sIgA1 and sIgA2 subclasses were involved in 100% and 33% of cases. Overall, the antibody immunological landscape of convalescent donor milk suggests that it may be a potential defense agent against COVID-19 for infants, conferring them with a passive immunity.
ISSN:	2076-0817 2076-0817