title: Development and evaluation of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for dengue capsid.
abstract: The astonishing speed with which Dengue has spread across the world and the severity of its infection make Dengue a prime threat to human life worldwide. Unfortunately, to date there are no effective vaccines or treatments against Dengue. Since only a few assays permit rapid and sensitive detection of Dengue, we developed a specific antigen capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the abundant structural Dengue-2 capsid protein. We showed that the ELISA allows rapid and sensitive detection of Dengue-2 replication in various cell lines including human and mosquito cells. Using anti-capsid antibodies, we demonstrated that the capsid ELISA is as accurate as other well-characterized Dengue assays such as intracellular FACS staining (IFSA) and fluorescent focus (FFA) assays. The capsid ELISA not only represents a useful tool for in vitro basic research, but it may also represent a valuable diagnostic tool for Dengue infection in patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology & Microbial Science, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
authors.forename: Suganya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Selvarajah
authors.forename: Udayan
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Chatterji
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kuhn
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kinney
authors.forename: Subhash G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Vasudevan
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gallay