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Humoral immune response characteristics of vulnerable populations against SARS-CoV-2 strains EG.5 and JN.1 after infection with strains BA.5 and XBB

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Abstract

In this study, we compared the humoral immune characteristics of children, elderly individuals, and pregnant women in Guangzhou, China, who had been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 strains BA.5 and XBB against the currently predominant strains EG.5 and JN.1. It was discovered that the neutralizing antibody titers in children, elderly individuals, and pregnant women against strains EG.5 and JN.1 were low in individuals who had been infected with strain BA.5, irrespective of their vaccination status. There was a significant positive correlation between the neutralization titers against JN.1 and EG.5 in both the acute and convalescent phases of BA.5 infection. For XBB-infected patients, the sera in the acute stage exhibited a low neutralizing titer against EG.5 and JN.1, whereas the convalescent sera demonstrated a significantly higher neutralizing titer against the two viruses, particularly in infected individuals who had been vaccinated. For XBB-infected patients, there was a strong positive correlation between the serum neutralizing antibody titers against EG.5 and JN.1 in both the acute and recovery phases. This finding provides crucial information for judging the epidemic trend of COVID-19 and the development of vaccines, especially for developing customized vaccines and immune strategies for different populations.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed in the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The source data are provided in this article.

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Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers: 32170939 and 82371846), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (grant number 2022B1515020075), the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of CPSF under Grant Number GZC20230605, the President Foundation of Nanfang Hospital Baiyun Branch, Southern Medical University: BYYZ24001 and the Guangdong Science and Technology Program Key Projects (no. 2021B1212030014).

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Author notes

  1. Huan Zhang, Shi Ouyang and Yunyun Qu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathogen Detection for Emerging Infectious Disease Response, Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention CN, Guangzhou, China

    Huan Zhang, Baisheng Li & Wei Zhao

  2. BSL-3 Laboratory (Guangdong), Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, School of Public Health, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Huan Zhang, Zhuolin Li, Yushan Jiang & Chenguang Shen

  3. Department of Infectious Diseases, Key Laboratory of Biological Targeting Diagnosis, Therapy and Rehabilitation of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, 510000, China

    Shi Ouyang, Yushan Jiang & Tingting Peng

  4. The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong, University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China

    Yunyun Qu & Tao Chen

  5. Jinan Central People’s Hospital, Jinan, Shandong, China

    Guangyan Yang

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  1. Huan Zhang
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Contributions

C.S., S.O., and B.L. contributed to the experimental design. C.S., F.O., and Y.J. contributed to manuscript preparation. H.Z. and Z.L. performed the neutralization assays and contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data. T.P. and JZ. enrolled the patients and collected the clinical data.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Tao Chen, Baisheng Li, Chenguang Shen or Wei Zhao.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval and consent to participate

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University and Baiyun Branch, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University. Informed consent was obtained from all participants before enrollment.

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Not applicable.

Conflict of interest

The funders had no role in the design or conduct of the study, or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The authors declare no competing interests.

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Zhang, H., Ouyang, S., Qu, Y. et al. Humoral immune response characteristics of vulnerable populations against SARS-CoV-2 strains EG.5 and JN.1 after infection with strains BA.5 and XBB. Arch Virol 170, 82 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00705-025-06248-y

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