Evaluation of polyclonal antibodies raised in rabbit against Dengue NS1 antigen

The vector-borne disease, dengue is caused by the dengue virus (DENV) and the illness spread by Aedes mosquitoes like Aedesaegypti and Aedesalbopictus. In the absence of antiviral drugs and vaccines, dengue prevention is centred on mosquito vector control. Current methods of dengue detection suffer from limitations. The non-structural protein-1 (NS1) antigen in secretory form is being employed as a diagnostic marker to identify dengue infection andAedes vector infections. This method involves the use of commercial dengue NS1 ELISA kits. In the present study, we have evaluated Rabbit Polyclonal Antibodies raised against the Dengue NS1 antigen (RPAD). The RPAD were tested against commercial recombinant dengue virus-2 NS1 antigen (rDNS1Ag) by standardized ELISA and Western Blotting. Further, the sensitivity of RPAD was checked against the NS1 antigens of different serotypes of DENV. The specificity of RPAD towards the NS1 antigens of other flavivirus was also tested.We found that the RPAD is specific and sensitive for detecting rDNS1Ag of all serotypes and it can be explored to detect DENV infection in the mosquito vectors collected from the field during the dengue outbreaks.