Validation of plasmonic-based biosensors for rapid and sensitive detection of rabbit hemorrhagic and foot-and-mouth disease viruses in biological samples

Biosensing technologies and monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) are gaining increasing importance as powerful tools in the field of virology. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is an optical biosensing technology already used in virus detection and in the screening of MAbs of diagnostic and therapeutic value. Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus 2 (RHDV) and foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) are top veterinary issues for whom, the development of novel methods for their detection in biological samples represents a priority with important livestock healthcare and economic implications. With these premises, here we prepared a series of SPR biosensors containing RHDV2 or its 6S subunit immobilized to the surface by different strategies. The biosensors were then used to characterize the binding capacity of a panel of anti-RHDV2 MAbs. From the comparison of the results obtained, the biosensor composed of intact RHDV2 captured with catcher-MAb covalently immobilized to the surface showed the best analytical performances, that were retained also when the same strategy was adopted to prepare a biosensor containing a different virus (namely, FMVD). The results obtained are discussed in view of the exploitation of SPR in the rapid, sensitive and resilient detection of viruses in biological materials and in the screening of antiviral MAbs libraries.