Nipah Virus Antigens and Antibodies

Nipah virus (NiV) is a highly pathogenic zoonotic paramyxovirus that causes acute encephalitis along with high mortality rates (40-75%). Therefore, there is an urgent need for effective NiV vaccines and therapeutics. Laboratory testing for NiV can be conducted using real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Creative Diagnostics has released a range of NiV recombinant antigens and antibody pairs. All of them are produced using a standardized production process to ensure the highest quality. Tests developed using these reagents can assist you in routine diagnosis and NiV vaccine development.

Background

Nipah virus is an enveloped non-segmented negative-strand RNA virus in the Henipavirus genus of the Paramyxoviridae family. NiV is a highly pathogenic zoonotic virus harbored by fruit bats (mainly Pteropus spp) and transmitted from bats-to-humans. Outbreaks of severe encephalitis and respiratory disease caused by Niv infection have occurred almost annually in Bangladesh and India since 2001. However, there are no licensed treatments and vaccines available for NiV infection in humans.

Fig. 1 Structure and genome organization (Amaya M and Broder CC. 2020)

NiV has two membrane-anchored glycoproteins involved in cellular attachment of the virion and subsequent host cell entry, the attachment protein (G) and fusion protein (F), which are ideal targets for neutralizing antibodies. A variety of immunization strategies have been developed to prevent NiV infection by utilizing G and/or F glycoprotein antigens. Including virus vectors, subunit vaccines, virus-like particles (VLPs), and mRNA vaccines.

Fig. 2 Vaccine platforms for NiV (Singh RK, et al. 2019)