{"doi":"10.1002/eji.202149234","title":"Homologous and heterologous serological response to the N‐terminal domain of SARS‐CoV‐2 in humans and mice","abstract":"The increasing numbers of infected cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) poses serious threats to public health and the global economy. Most SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies target the receptor binding domain (RBD) and some the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the spike protein, which is the major antigen of SARS-CoV-2. While the antibody response to RBD has been extensively characterized, the antigenicity and immunogenicity of the NTD protein are less well studied. Using 227 plasma samples from COVID-19 patients, we showed that SARS-CoV-2 NTD-specific antibodies could be induced during infection. As compared to the results of SARS-CoV-2 RBD, the serological response of SARS-CoV-2 NTD is less cross-reactive with SARS-CoV, a pandemic strain that was identified in 2003. Furthermore, neutralizing antibodies are rarely elicited in a mice model when NTD is used as an immunogen. We subsequently demonstrate that NTD has an altered antigenicity when expressed alone. Overall, our results suggest that while NTD offers a supplementary strategy for serology testing, it may not be suitable as an immunogen for vaccine development.","journal":"European Journal of Immunology","year":2021,"id":195527,"datarank":0.3379040396687135,"base_score":2.1972245773362196,"endowment":2.1972245773362196,"self_citation_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citation_network_contribution":0.008320353068280531,"self_endowment_contribution":0.32958368660043297,"citer_contribution":0.008320353068280531,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":8,"citer_count":1,"citers_with_citation_signal":1,"citers_with_endowment":1,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9559,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":106162,"name":"Owen Tak‐Yin Tsang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105427,"name":"Ray T. Y. So","orcid":"0000-0002-9576-4489","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228189,"name":"Yiquan Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-1954-9808","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105423,"name":"Meng Yuan","orcid":"0000-0001-9754-4503","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108970,"name":"Hejun Liu","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228188,"name":"Garrick K. Yip","orcid":"0000-0003-3260-4960","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":630593,"name":"Qi Wen Teo","orcid":"0000-0001-6749-9684","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228190,"name":"Yi‐Han Lin","orcid":"0000-0002-0469-8069","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":286750,"name":"Weiwen Liang","orcid":"0000-0001-5213-0331","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":72032,"name":"Jinlin Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-0525-6649","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228191,"name":"Wilson W. Ng","orcid":"0000-0003-1359-7398","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105430,"name":"Ian A. Wilson","orcid":"0000-0002-6469-2419","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":7188,"name":"Malik Peiris","orcid":"0000-0001-8217-5995","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105424,"name":"Nicholas C. Wu","orcid":"0000-0002-9078-6697","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105429,"name":"Chris Ka Pun Mok","orcid":"0000-0002-0525-6772","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105428,"name":"Huibin Lv","orcid":"0000-0003-2218-0076","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":50,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:50:07.691929Z","pmid":"34089541","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}