Browsing by Author "Perez, Ruth"

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    Comparison of VSV Pseudovirus and Focus Reduction Neutralization Assays for Measurement of Anti-Andes orthohantavirus Neutralizing Antibodies in Patient Samples
    (2020-09) Vial, Cecilia; Whitaker, Annalis; Wilhelm, Jan; Ovalle, Jimena; Perez, Ruth; Valdivieso, Francisca; Ferres, Marcela; Martínez-Valdebenito, Constanza; Eisenhauer, Philip; Mertz, Gregory J.; Hooper, Jay W.; Botten, Jason W.; Vial, Pablo
    Andes orthohantavirus (ANDV) is the etiologic agent of hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome (HCPS), which has a case fatality rate around 35%, with no effective treatment or vaccine available. ANDV neutralizing antibody (NAb) measurements are important for the evaluation of the immune response following infection, vaccination, or passive administration of investigational monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies. The standard assay for NAb measurement is a focus reduction neutralization test (FRNT) featuring live ANDV and must be completed under biosafety level (BSL)-3 conditions. In this study, we compared neutralization assays featuring infectious ANDV or vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pseudovirions decorated with ANDV glycoproteins for their ability to measure anti-ANDV NAbs from patient samples. Our studies demonstrate that VSV pseudovirions effectively measure NAb from clinical samples and have greater sensitivity compared to FRNT with live ANDV. Importantly, the pseudovirus assay requires less labor and sample materials and can be conducted at BSL-2.
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    Molecular method for the detection of Andes hantavirus infection: validation for clinical diagnostics
    (Elsevier, 2016) Vial, Cecilia; Martinez-Valdebenito, Constanza; Rios, Susana; Martinez, Jessica; Vial, Pablo; Ferres, Marcela; Rivera, Juan; Perez, Ruth; Valdivieso, Francisca
    Hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome is a severe disease caused by exposure to New World hantaviruses. Early diagnosis is difficult due to the lack of specific initial symptoms. Antihantavirus antibodies are usually negative until late in the febrile prodrome or the beginning of cardiopulmonary phase, while Andes hantavirus (ANDV) RNA genome can be detected before symptoms onset. We analyzed the effectiveness of quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) as a diagnostic tool detecting ANDV-Sout genome in peripheral blood cells from 78 confirmed hantavirus patients and 166 negative controls. Our results indicate that RT-qPCR had a low detection limit (~10 copies), with a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 94.9%. This suggests the potential for establishing RT-qPCR as the assay of choice for early diagnosis, promoting early effective care of patients, and improving other important aspects of ANDV infection management, such as compliance of biosafety recommendations for health personnel in order to avoid nosocomial transmission.

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