Determinants of Antibody Levels and Protection against Omicron Breakthrough Infection

DOI

The ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2, particularly through the emergence of new variants, continues to challenge our understanding of immune protection. While antibody levels correlate with protection against earlier variants like Alpha and Delta, their relationship with Omicron sub-variants remains unclear. To investigate the role of antibody levels and neutralizing activity in preventing breakthrough infections, we analyzed longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 humoral responses and neutralizing activity against the ancestral virus and major emerging variants in a well-characterized cohort of healthcare workers in Spain (N = 405). We find that antibody levels and neutralization titers are key indicators of protection against SARS-CoV-2, including the more evasive BQ.1 and XBB Omicron variants. Higher IgG and IgA levels are associated with protection over three 6-month follow-up periods sequentially dominated by BA.1, BA.2, BA.5, BQ.1, and XBB Omicron sub-variants, although the strength of the association between antibody levels and protection declines over time. Our findings demonstrate that binding antibody levels and neutralizing responses are a valid correlate of protection against more evasive BQ.1 and XBB Omicron variants, although the strength of this association diminishes over time. Additionally, our results underscore the importance of continuous monitoring and updating vaccination strategies to maintain effective protection against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.34810/data2205
Related Identifier IsCitedBy https://doi.org/12.3456/abcd.xyz
Metadata Access https://dataverse.csuc.cat/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.34810/data2205
Provenance
Creator Carla Martin Perez ORCID logo; Anna Ramirez Morros ORCID logo; Alfons Jimenez ORCID logo; Marta Vidal ORCID logo; Edwards Pradenas ORCID logo; Diana Barrios ORCID logo; Mar Canyelles ORCID logo; Rocio Rubio ORCID logo; Inocencia Cuamba ORCID logo; Luis Izquierdo ORCID logo; Pere Santamaria ORCID logo; Benjamin Trinite (ORCID: 0000-0003-3809-042X); Josep Vidal Alaball ORCID logo; Luis M. Molinos-Albert ORCID logo; Julia Blanco ORCID logo; Ruth Aguilar ORCID logo; Anna Ruiz-Comellas ORCID logo; Gemma Moncunill ORCID logo; Carlota Dobaño ORCID logo
Publisher CORA.Repositori de Dades de Recerca
Contributor UBIOESGD
Publication Year 2025
Rights CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
OpenAccess true
Contact UBIOESGD (Barcelona Institute for Global Health)
Representation
Resource Type Experimental data; Dataset
Format text/x-r-notebook; text/tab-separated-values; text/csv; text/plain
Size 594958; 42145868; 110918491; 1506461; 5929; 2366361; 3113332; 3593787; 6584; 99171; 83200
Version 1.0
Discipline Life Sciences; Medicine