An antibody panel for highly specific detection and differentiation of Zika virus

Md Alamgir Kabir,Sandhya Sharma,Shelton S Bradrick,Waseem Asghar,Ruben Soto-Acosta,Massimo Caputi,Mariano A Garcia-Blanco

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-68635-6

Md Alamgir Kabir, Sandhya Sharma + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68635-6

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Abstract

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging flavivirus transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitos. ZIKV can be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy and can cause microcephaly and other birth defects. Effective vaccines for Zika are yet to be approved. Detection of the ZIKV is based on serological testing that often shows cross-reactivity with the Dengue virus (DENV) and other flaviviruses. We aimed to assemble a highly specific anti-Zika antibody panel to be utilized in the development of a highly specific and cost-effective ZIKV rapid quantification assay for viral load monitoring at point-of-care settings. To this end, we tested the affinity and specificity of twenty one commercially available monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies against ZIKV and DENV envelope proteins utilizing nine ZIKV and twelve DENV strains. We finalized and tested a panel of five antibodies for the specific detection and differentiation of ZIKV and DENV infected samples.

Highlights

Areas, and DENV present symptoms similar to Zika virus (ZIKV), a precise differential diagnosis among these viruses is critical to implement the proper monitoring and prevention s trategies[20,21,22,23]
We have evaluated the sera cross-reactivity of twenty one monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies against the ZIKV and DENV E proteins to assemble a highly specific panel of antibodies for the specific detection and differentiation of ZIKV from DENV
We evaluated the reactivity of commercially available anti-DENV and anti-ZIKV E protein antibodies utilizing several DENV and ZIKV isolates

Summary

Introduction

Areas, and DENV present symptoms similar to ZIKV, a precise differential diagnosis among these viruses is critical to implement the proper monitoring and prevention s trategies[20,21,22,23]. Identification of ZIKV infection is accomplished by i) testing the serum to detect viral nucleic acid using RT-PCR, ii) testing the serum for the presence of the non-structural 1 (NS1) protein antigen or iii) serological assays to determine the presence of virus-specific immunoglobulin IgG and IgM antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)[3,24]. ZIKV IgM-ELISA displays high specificity, but poor sensitivity, while the ZIKV IgG-ELISA are characterized by low specificity and cross-reactivity in patients previously exposed to dengue infections[25] Other assays, such as the plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT), can be performed to measure virus-specific neutralizing antibodies but show high accuracy only after day 7 of the disease o nset[2,26,27,28], are labor-intensive, expensive and time-consuming. The panel of selected antibodies were tested with deidentified ZIKV and DENV viral culture lysates and their lower limit of detection was determined by western blot

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