July 19, 2018
K-State researchers help discover unique antibody effect with Zika and dengue viruses
Antibodies are supposed to help the body fight infection and reinfection by viruses, but new research suggests that the antibodies we produce to fight two mosquito-borne viruses may worsen — rather than guard against — reinfection.
Yan-Jan S. Huang, Dana Vanlandingham and Stephen Higgs from the diagnostic medicine and pathobiology department in the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine and the Biosecurity Research Institute co-authored the paper with Joseph Mattapallil, associate professor of microbiology, and William Valiant, doctoral student, from Uniformed Services University and others from the Department of Defense and industry partner Bioqual. The paper was published on July 13 in Emerging Microbes & Infections, a Nature publication.
Dengue viruses infect millions of people a year in tropical areas such as Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. The mosquito-borne virus causes dengue fever, which can develop into a fatal hemorrhagic disease. The virus comes in four closely related varieties, and when people are infected the first time, they develop antibodies that guard against reinfection with the same variety. Infection with a different variety, however, could be worsened because the antibodies that helped the first time bind poorly to the slightly different virus and help deliver it to other areas of the body.
Zika and dengue are closely related, so scientists are interested in finding out whether Zika antibodies will also be "cross-reactive" and help enhance dengue virus infections, and vice versa.
According to Stephen Higgs, director of the Biosecurity Research Institute and university distinguished professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, this research is crucial to improve knowledge related to the use of vaccines against these viruses.
"When vaccines become available and are approved, it may be advantageous to vaccinate people with vaccines for Zika and Dengue at the same time, because this could reduce the chance of enhancement," Higgs said.
Results from the study provide more information on the types of antibodies involved in enhancement, the effect of the time after initial Zika infection, and whether Zika antibodies could project against dengue virus infection enhancement.
"Research in this area is ongoing. It's going to take more studies to unravel how the two viruses' antibodies affect each other," Higgs said.
Huang, Higgs, and Vanlandingham have been collaborating with Uniformed Services University scientists for the past three years and published a seminal manuscript in Nature Scientific Reports in 2017 that for the first time demonstrated enhancement of dengue infection after infection with the Zika virus.