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Researchers are closer to developing a broadly effective antibody treatment against the three major Ebola viruses that cause lethal disease in humans. The isolation of two potent monoclonal antibodies from human survivors of Ebola virus disease that, in cell culture studies, efficiently neutralized the Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo ebola viruses.
The antibodies, EBOV-515 and EBOV-520, also showed the capacity to protect against infection by these viruses in animal models. These antibodies could lead to development of injectable antibody “cocktails” for people at high risk of being infected by Ebola viruses. The antibodies could destroy the viruses before they can wreak havoc in the body.
Ebola virus disease, which was first reported in Central Africa in 1976, can cause massive bleeding. The death rate is about 50 percent. The virus is spread by contact with contaminated body fluids like blood and semen. A major outbreak in West Africa claimed more than 11,000 lives between 2014 and 2016.
Researchers developed high-efficiency methods that can quickly isolate antibody-producing white blood cells from survivor blood samples and then fuse them to fast-growing myeloma (cancer) cells. In this way they can produce large quantities of antibodies that target specific viruses.
In the current study, plasma was obtained from survivors of Ebola virus disease outbreaks in the Congo and West Africa. Monoclonal antibodies were generated from the white blood cells of two survivors that showed the highest activity against the three Ebola viruses.