Researchers working as part of an international collaboration have found a “cocktail” of monoclonal antibodies that effectively blocked Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in primates. The study was lead by researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and published yesterday in Science Translational Medicine.
Currently, the only recommended method to prevent Zika infection is to avoid the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
The team isolated three monoclonal antibodies from the plasmoblasts of a ZIKV-infected patient--SMZAb1, SMZAb2 and SMZAb5. They injected a cocktail of all three into a nonhuman primate shortly before exposing them to Zika virus isolated from another human Zika patient. The virus was unable to take hold in the treated primates.
A control group of four animals was also exposed to the virus and they caught a full infection that lasted for seven days. But no virus levels were present in the blood of the four animals who received the monoclonal antibody treatment, nor was there any immune response.
"Since these antibodies have exceptional safety profiles in humans and cross the placenta, this combination could be rapidly developed to protect uninfected pregnant women and their fetuses," said David Watkins, Ph.D., professor and vice chair for research, Department of Pathology.
The team hopes to further develop their monoclonal antibody treatment and get it into clinical trials as soon as possible.