Development of polyclonal chicken egg yolk immunoglobulin Y (IgY) antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 multi-epitope antigen

Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the primary cause of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which affects millions of people worldwide with high levels of infectivity and mortality. However, the antibodies developed for COVID-19 research and diagnostics are still limited. Therefore, in this study, we developed polyclonal immunoglobulin (IgY) antibodies from chicken egg yolk targeting multi-epitope antigen of SARS-CoV-2. After immunizing hens with a SARS-CoV-2 multi-epitope peptide, IgY antibodies were isolated from chicken eggs and further characterized using SDS-PAGE and ELISA. The results showed that the IgY antibodies were successfully isolated from egg yolks. The sandwich ELISA results demonstrated that the isolated IgYs could bind to SARS-CoV-2 antigens, both the multi-epitope peptide and the trimeric Spike. Furthermore, the developed polyclonal antibodies could recognize SARS-CoV-2 in human nasopharyngeal swab samples, even at the lowest concentration (dilution at 1:10000). Thus, it can be concluded that the developed polyclonal IgYs were successfully produced and have the potential to be applied in the development of COVID-19 diagnostics.