Production and characterization of monoclonal antibodies to Newcastle Disease Virus

Newcastle Disease (ND) is one of the major causes of economic loss in the poultry industry. Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) is a single-stranded, negative-sense enveloped RNA virus (Fam. Paramyxoviridae; Order Mononegavirales). In the present study three monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) were produced by polyethyleneglycol (PEG)-mediated fusion of lymphocytes sensitized to NDV Bareilly strain and myeloma cells. NDV possesses ability to agglutinate erythrocytes of avian species. All the three MAbs designated as 2H7, 3E9 and 3G6 caused hemagglutination inhibition of NDV by specifically binding to NDV. The reactivity for all the 3 MAbs on indirect ELISA was found to be significantly higher than the antibody and antigen controls. On flowcytometry of HeLa cells infected with NDV using the MAbs as primary antibodies, there was a significant difference in the percentage of cells showing positive fluorescence compared to the mock control. One of the MAbs (3E9) was found to react with hemagglutinin-neuraminidase (HN) protein on western blot.