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

• Main Authors: Anna S Heffron (Author), Emma L Mohr (Author), David Baker (Author), Amelia K Haj (Author), Connor R Buechler (Author), Adam Bailey (Author), Dawn M Dudley (Author), Christina M Newman (Author), Mariel S Mohns (Author), Michelle Koenig (Author), Meghan E Breitbach (Author), Mustafa Rasheed (Author), Laurel M Stewart (Author), Jens Eickhoff (Author), Richard S Pinapati (Author), Erica Beckman (Author), Hanying Li (Author), Jigar Patel (Author), John C Tan (Author), David H O'Connor (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2018-11-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

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 species, 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 monkeys 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 in one case the response was elicited following DENV infection in a previously ZIKV-exposed animal. These results suggest epidemiologic studies assessing seroprevalence of ZIKV immunity using linear epitope-based strategies will remain challenging to interpret due to susceptibility to false positive results. However, the method used here demonstrates the potential for rapid profiling of proteome-wide antibody responses to a myriad of neglected diseases simultaneously and may be especially useful for distinguishing antibody reactivity among closely related pathogens.

Item Description

1935-2727
1935-2735
10.1371/journal.pntd.0006903