Broadly Neutralizing Activity of Zika Virus-Immune Sera Identifies a Single Viral Serotype

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Kimberly A. Dowd, National Institutes of Health; Christina R. DeMaso, National Institutes of Health; Rebecca S. Pelc, National Institutes of Health; Scott D. Speer, National Institutes of Health; Alexander R. Y. Smith, National Institutes of Health; Leslie Goo, National Institutes of Health; Derek J. Platt, Washington University; John R. Mascola, National Institutes of Health; Barney S. Graham, National Institutes of Health; Mark Mulligan, Emory University; Michael S. Diamond, National Institutes of Health; Julie E. Ledgerwood, National Institutes of Health; Theodore C. Pierson, National Institutes of Health
• Language: English
• Date: 2016-08-31
• Publisher: Elsevier (Cell Press): OAJ
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2016 Elsevier
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2016.07.049
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Cell Reports
• ISSN: 2211-1247
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 6
• Start Page: 1485
• End Page: 1491
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was funded by the intramural program of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease to the Division of Intramural Research and the Vaccine Research Center, and extramural grant R01AI073755 to MSD.; MJM was supported by funds from the Emory University School of Medicine and the Georgia Research Alliance.

Abstract

Recent epidemics of Zika virus (ZIKV) have been associated with congenital malformation during pregnancy and Guillain-Barré syndrome. There are two ZIKV lineages (African and Asian) that share >95% amino acid identity. Little is known regarding the ability of neutralizing antibodies elicited against one lineage to protect against the other. We investigated the breadth of the neutralizing antibody response following ZIKV infection by measuring the sensitivity of six ZIKV strains to neutralization by ZIKV-confirmed convalescent human serum or plasma samples. Contemporary Asian and early African ZIKV strains were similarly sensitive to neutralization regardless of the cellular source of virus. Furthermore, mouse immune serum generated after infection with African or Asian ZIKV strains was capable of neutralizing homologous and heterologous ZIKV strains equivalently. As our study defines only a single ZIKV serotype, vaccine candidates eliciting robust neutralizing antibody responses should inhibit infection of both ZIKV lineages, including strains circulating in the Americas.