The Impact of Pathogen Reduction on Total IgG and IgG Subclass Profiles of Convalescent Plasma

In case of newly emerging pathogens, convalescent plasma (CP) is often the only early available treatment option. It has been shown that different IgG subclasses contribute differently to CP neutralizing activity. As CP donors often have a risk profile like first-time donors, especially with respect to window-period viral transmission, pathogen reduction (PR) could mitigate that risk. The aim of our study, especially in the light of potential future pandemics, was to evaluate the impact of commercially available PR technologies on total IgG and IgG subclasses quantity and distribution in CP using COVID-19 CP (CCP) as surrogate for CP in a side-by-side comparison approach.

36 apheresis CCP donations were allocated to three study groups and a side-by-side assessment of the potential impact of amotosalen (AS)/UVA treatment compared to a riboflavin (RB)/UVB treatment, AS against methylene blue (MB) treatment, and RB against MB treatment on the quantity of IgG and IgG subclasses with a nephelometric analyzer was performed.

IgG subclass distributions were not significantly changed post PR treatment with all three technologies. There was also no significant difference in the median loss of concentration for IgG1 and IgG2 between the three technologies. We recognized a non-significant trend of a higher IgG4 median loss post RB treatment compared to post AS and MB treatment, respectively.

Although the three commercially available PR systems do not significantly alter the distribution of IgG subclasses, we detected a non-significant trend of higher IgG4 loss after RB treatment. The potential impact of that finding needs further investigation.