Antibody responses to Zika virus proteins in pregnant and non-pregnant macaques

by Anna S. Heffron, Emma L. Mohr, David Baker, Amelia K. Haj, Connor R. Buechler, Adam Bailey, Dawn M. Dudley, Christina M. Newman, Mariel S. Mohns, Michelle Koenig, Meghan E. Breitbach, Mustafa Rasheed, Laurel M. Stewart, Jens Eickhoff, Richard S. Pinapati, Erica Beckman, Hanying Li, Jigar Patel, John C. Tan, David H. O ’Connor The specificity of the antibody response against Zika virus (ZIKV) is not well-characterized. This is due, in part, to the antigenic similarity between ZIKV and closely related dengue virus (DENV) serotypes. Since these and other similar viruses co-circulate, are spread by the same mosquito specie s, and can cause similar acute clinical syndromes, it is difficult to disentangle ZIKV-specific antibody responses from responses to closely-related arboviruses in humans. Here we use high-density peptide microarrays to profile anti-ZIKV antibody reactivity in pregnant and non-pregnant macaque monke ys with known exposure histories and compare these results to reactivity following DENV infection. We also compare cross-reactive binding of ZIKV-immune sera to the full proteomes of 28 arboviruses. We independently confirm a purported ZIKV-specific IgG antibody response targeting ZIKV nonstructural protein 2B (NS2B) that was recently reported in ZIKV-infected people and we show that antibody reactivity in pregnant animals can be detected as late as 127 days post-infection (dpi). However, we also show that these responses wane over time, sometimes rapidly, and...
Source: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases - Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Source Type: research