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Updated: Jul 3, 2026
Dried Blood Spots - Preparing and Processing for Use in Immunoassays and in Molecular Techniques
Published on: March 13, 2015
Quantitating SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies from human dried blood spots
Katherine Berman1, Greta Van Slyke1, Hayley Novak1
1Division of Infectious Disease, Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Albany, New York, USA.
Dried blood spots (DBS) can effectively measure neutralizing antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection and vaccination. DBS eluates show strong correlation with serum PRNT values, supporting their use in population-level immunity assessments.
Area of Science:
- Immunology
- Virology
- Public Health
Background:
- Dried blood spots (DBS) were crucial for early COVID-19 seroprevalence studies.
- With high SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity, focus shifts to assessing neutralizing antibodies using DBS.
- Accurate measurement of neutralizing antibodies is vital for public health strategies, including vaccine booster recommendations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the utility of DBS for measuring SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies.
- To compare antibody measurements from DBS eluates with established serum-based assays.
- To evaluate the potential of DBS for high-throughput population-level immunity assessment.
Main Methods:
- Generated contrived DBS (cDBS) and whole blood-derived DBS from convalescent and vaccinated individuals.
- Assayed DBS eluates using multiplexed microsphere immunoassay (MIA), RBD-human ACE2 inhibition (iACE2), pseudovirus neutralization, and NAB-Sure assays.
- Benchmarked DBS results against paired serum samples tested using a plaque reduction neutralization titer (PRNT) assay.
Main Results:
- Significant correlations were observed between DBS eluate results (MIA and NAB-Sure) and serum PRNT values in 86 paired samples.
- SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies were readily measurable in DBS eluates.
- MIA and NAB-Sure assays demonstrated adaptability for high-throughput automation.
Conclusions:
- DBS are a viable biospecimen for assessing SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody titers.
- DBS-based assays correlate well with gold-standard serum neutralization assays.
- DBS offer a promising tool for community and population-level assessment of SARS-CoV-2 immunity.
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