Development of a Specific CHIKV-E2 Monoclonal Antibody for Chikungunya Diagnosis

Chikungunya fever is a vector-borne viral disease transmitted to humans by chikungunya virus (CHIKV)-infected mosquitoes. There have been many outbreaks of CHIKV infection worldwide, and the virus poses ongoing risks to global health. To prevent and control CHIKV infection, it is important to improve the current CHIKV diagnostic approaches to allow for the detection of low CHIKV concentrations and to correctly distinguish CHIKV infections from those due to other mosquito-transmitted viruses, including dengue virus (DENV), Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), and Zika virus (ZIKV). Here, we produced monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against the CHIKV envelope 2 protein (CHIKV-E2) and compared their sensitivity and specificity with commercially available mAbs using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA). Two anti-CHIKV-E2 mAbs, 19-1 and 21-1, showed higher binding affinities to CHIKV-E2 protein than the commercial mAbs did. In particular, the 19-1 mAb had the strongest binding affinity to inactivated CHIKV. Moreover, the 19-1 mAb had very little cross-reactivity with other mosquito-borne viruses, such as ZIKV, JEV, and DENV. These results suggest that the newly produced anti-CHIKV-E2 mAb, 19-1, could be used for CHIKV diagnostic approaches.