The surge of SARS-CoV-2 has challenged health systems worldwide and efficient tests to detect viral particles, as well as antibodies generated against them, are needed. Specificity, sensitivity, promptness or scalability are the main parameters to estimate the final performance, but rarely all of them match in a single test. We have developed SCOVAM, a protein microarray with several viral antigens (spike, nucleocapsid, main protease Nsp5) as capturing probes in a fluorescence immunoassay for COVID-19 serological testing. SCOVAM depicts IgG and IgM antibody responses against each of these proteins of 22 individuals in a single microscope slide. It detects specific IgM (0.094 lg ml -1 ) and IgG (~0.017 lg ml -1 ) and is scalable and cost-effective. We validated SCOVAM by comparing with a widely used chemiluminescent commercial serological test (n = 742). SCOVAM showed twice the sensitivity and allowed following seroconversion in a single assay. By analysing the prevalence 4 months later in a subset of 76 positive sera, we still detected 93.42% of positives, almost doubling the detection of the commercial assay. The higher sensitivity of SCOVAM is especially relevant to screen sera for convalescent plasma-based treatments, high-throughput antibody response monitoring after vaccination or evaluation of vaccine efficiency.
Engineering of a Mouse-Adapted Reverse Genetics System for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 218
ABSTRACTStargets using non-canonical offset seed matches and functional base pairing of nucleotide 10. At the target level, miR-K6-5p was consequently able to regulate most miR-16 targets, albeit at altered efficiencies compared to miR-16. At the functional level, miR-K6-5p shared the tumor suppressive functions of miR-16, including the induction of cell cycle arrest. Altogether, our data suggest that this oncogenic herpesvirus encodes a functional mimic of miR-16. Our ongoing experiments address the hypothesis that miR-K6-5p functions to balance consequences of viral oncogene expression. While many oncogenic herpesviruses encode gene products that antagonize tumor suppressors, this is-to our knowledgethe first example of an oncogenic virus that encodes a homolog or mimic of a bona fide tumor suppressor.
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