Mouse anti-Mumps Virus monoclonal antibody, clone MN161

MuV (Mumps virus) causes mumps, a respiratory infection. It is mostly a virus that strikes kids and teenagers. Most adults with the virus are not symptomatic, but could be carriers, transmitting the virus. The main clinical manifestation is multi-organ infections. Since the popularisation of the live attenuated mumps vaccine, mumps has been kept in check. But mumps outbreaks have also occasionally occurred around the world, even among the vaccinees in recent years.

MuV is a negative-sense, one-stranded RNA virus from the Paramyxoviridae family. It has only one serotype, stable antigens and high immunogenicity. The mumps virus is replicated when the viral nucleocapsid breaks off into the cytoplasm of the host cell. Then all the viral proteins are transcriptional, the viral genome is copyred, and viruses are fashioned and released through budding. There are seven transcript units in the viral genome that encode proteins: nucleoprotein (N), phosphoprotein (P), matrix protein (M), fusion protein (F), small hydrophobic protein (SH), hemagglutinin-neuraminidase protein (HN) and large protein (L). Glycoprotein F made as a precursor protein, and recombinant into two polypeptides (F1 and F2) linked by a disulfide bond. The F and HN proteins are both encoded in the viral membrane and they are integral to viral binding to and entry into host cells. They are also the primary antigens triggering immune responses. The M protein is essential for viral assembly and budding processes.

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the mumps virus particle
(Source: Mourez T, et al. 2018)

Thanks to the availability of live attenuated mumps vaccines, especially the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) combination vaccine, which is now a standard part of all national vaccination programmes in most countries, the disease has been contained. But while mumps incidences have declined by almost half, in recent years outbreaks have occurred in the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Japan. Such outbreaks might be due to clustering of at-risk populations, the number of vaccine doses administered, decreased antibodies after a vaccination, or mismatched circulating genotypes and vaccine strains.

anti-MuV monoclonal antibody