Antibody Development Strategies for SFTSV: From Hybridoma to Emerging Technologies

Area of Science:

• Virology
• Immunology
• Drug Discovery

Background:

• Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the SFTS virus (SFTSV).
• SFTSV infection has a high case fatality rate (16.2-32.6%) in East Asia.
• No approved vaccines or antiviral treatments are currently available for SFTSV.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review advances in the development of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against SFTSV.
• To discuss conventional and innovative methods for mAb generation and design.
• To highlight challenges and propose strategies for developing effective SFTSV therapeutics.

Main Methods:

• Review of current literature on SFTSV neutralizing mAb research.
• Exploration of mAb generation techniques including hybridoma, phage display, and single B cell sequencing.
• Discussion of computational tools for epitope prediction and *in silico* mAb design.

Main Results:

• Advances in generating SFTSV-neutralizing mAbs using various methods.
• Insights into structure-function relationships of mAbs targeting SFTSV Gn and Gc glycoproteins.
• Identification of challenges like epitope accessibility and antibody-dependent enhancement.

Conclusions:

• Monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy is a promising strategy for SFTSV treatment.
• Integrating structure-guided engineering and high-throughput screening can accelerate therapeutic development.
• Further research is needed to overcome challenges and develop safe, effective SFTSV mAbs.