Exploring potential application of anti-dengue NS1 human polyclonal antibodies for detection of dengue virus infection

Dengue, a vector-borne disease, affects nearly 400 million people annually. Although commercially available dengue NS1 antigen-based ELISA kits are simple and rapid, they are expensive as monoclonal antibodies are used in these tests, and also, they have short expiry dates. As an alternative, the polyclonal antibodies generated against dengue NS1 antigen from the individuals who recovered from the dengue infection (human polyclonal antibodies against dengue; HuPA-D) can be explored for the detection of NS1 antigen in the dengue virus (DENV) infected patients' sera. In this study, blood samples were collected from the dengue-recovered patients after obtaining the IHEC approval. The anti-NS1 HuPA-D (IgG) was purified using NAbTM Spin Column kit and tested on SDS-PAGE. HuPA-D ELISA was developed to test the sensitivity and specificity of the antibodies using the recombinant NS1 antigens of dengue serotypes and flaviviruses. Further, the HuPA-D were used to detect the sera of the dengue patients. The assay was found to be sensitive to detect all the serotypes of recombinant dengue NS1 antigen and also NS1 antigen from the sera of DENV infected patients.