Preprint Prevalent and persistent new-onset autoantibodies in mild to severe COVID-19, 2024, Nilsson et al

Prevalent and persistent new-onset autoantibodies in mild to severe COVID-19

Abstract
Autoantibodies have been shown to be implied in COVID-19 but the emerging autoantibody repertoire remains largely unexplored. We investigated the new-onset autoantibody repertoire in 525 healthcare workers and hospitalized COVID-19 patients in five time points over 16 months using proteome-wide and targeted protein and peptide arrays.

Our results show that prevalent new-onset autoantibodies against a wide range of antigens emerged following SARS-CoV-2 infection in relation to pre-infectious baseline samples and remained elevated for at least 12 months. We demonstrated associations between distinct new-onset autoantibodies and neuropsychiatric symptoms post-COVID-19. Using epitope mapping, we determined the main epitopes of selected new-onset autoantibodies, validated them in independent cohorts of neuro-COVID and pre-pandemic healthy controls, and identified molecular mimicry between main epitopes and the conserved fusion peptide of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike glycoprotein.

Our work describes the complexity and dynamics of the autoantibody repertoire emerging with COVID-19 and supports the need for continued analysis of the new-onset autoantibody repertoire to elucidate the mechanisms of the post-COVID-19 condition.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.15.24302857v1

 

I suspect that they have simply demonstrated that people with covid develop antibodies to Covid. Peptides are not a good way to look for autoantibodies of clinical relevance.