AccScience Publishing / MI / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/MI025320077
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SARS-CoV-2 semi-quantitative total antibody correlates with symptoms of long COVID in both vaccinated and unvaccinated subjects

James R. White1,2 Ralph L. Abraham3 Wyche T. Coleman3 Eddie Pitre1 Megan M. Stevenson2,4 Hannah L. Kaplan2,4 Alexander G. Goldberg2,4 Molly A. Allen2,4 Cecilia A. Castro2,4 Abby A. Haddox2,4 Harold E. Zylicz2,4 Henry P. Barham1,2,4*
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1 Phenomune Research, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America
2 Rhinology and Skull Base Research Group, Baton Rouge General Medical Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America
3 Louisiana Department of Health, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America
4 Sinus and Nasal Specialists of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States of America
Received: 8 August 2025 | Revised: 23 September 2025 | Accepted: 23 October 2025 | Published online: 17 November 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Long coronavirus disease (COVID) is defined as an infection-associated chronic condition that occurs after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and is present for at least 3 months as a continuous, relapsing, and remitting, or progressive disease state. While COVID-19 vaccines have been credited by public health officials with preventing COVID-associated morbidity and mortality, a portion of the population reports post-vaccination syndrome, often concerning long COVID. To investigate the association between post-vaccination syndrome and long COVID, we performed an observational cohort study at our outpatient clinical practice, evaluating SARS-CoV-2 semi-quantitative spike Ab in 100 consecutive patients (47% female and 53% male) with symptoms of long COVID. A total of 81 participants (46.9% female and 53.1% male) with post-vaccination syndrome and 19 unvaccinated participants (47.4% female and 52.6% male) with symptoms of long COVID were evaluated. SARS-CoV-2 Semi-Quant Spike Ab in the vaccinated cohort showed an average result of 11356.86 U/mL, whereas SARS-CoV-2 Semi-Quant Spike Ab in the unvaccinated cohort showed an average result of 1631.94 U/mL. The findings reveal potential immune differences in both individuals with long COVID and those with post-vaccination syndrome that merit further investigation to better understand these conditions and inform future research into diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.

Keywords
COVID-19
Spike
SARS-CoV-2
Long COVID
Funding
None.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Microbes & Immunity, Electronic ISSN: 3029-2883 Print ISSN: 3041-0886, Published by AccScience Publishing