title: Anti-Ebola therapies based on monoclonal antibodies: current state and challenges ahead.
abstract: The 2014 Ebola outbreak, the largest recorded, took us largely unprepared, with no available vaccine or specific treatment. In this context, the World Health Organization declared that the humanitarian use of experimental therapies against Ebola Virus (EBOV) is ethical. In particular, an experimental treatment consisting of a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) produced in tobacco plants and specifically directed to the EBOV glycoprotein (GP) was tested in humans, apparently with good results. Several mAbs with high affinity to the GP have been described. This review discusses our current knowledge on this topic. Particular emphasis is devoted to those mAbs that have been assayed in animal models or humans as possible therapies against Ebola. Engineering aspects and challenges for the production of anti-Ebola mAbs are also briefly discussed; current platforms for the design and production of full-length mAbs are cumbersome and costly.
authors.affiliation: a Centro de Biotecnología-FEMSA, Tecnológico de Monterrey , Monterrey , Nuevo León , Mexico.
authors.forename: Everardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: González-González
authors.affiliation: a Centro de Biotecnología-FEMSA, Tecnológico de Monterrey , Monterrey , Nuevo León , Mexico.|b Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School , Boston , MA , USA.|c Division of Health Sciences and Technology , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.|d Microsystems Technologies Laboratories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Mario Moisés
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Alvarez
authors.affiliation: a Centro de Biotecnología-FEMSA, Tecnológico de Monterrey , Monterrey , Nuevo León , Mexico.
authors.forename: Alan Roberto
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Márquez-Ipiña
authors.affiliation: a Centro de Biotecnología-FEMSA, Tecnológico de Monterrey , Monterrey , Nuevo León , Mexico.|b Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School , Boston , MA , USA.|c Division of Health Sciences and Technology , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.|d Microsystems Technologies Laboratories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Grissel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Trujillo-de Santiago
authors.affiliation: a Centro de Biotecnología-FEMSA, Tecnológico de Monterrey , Monterrey , Nuevo León , Mexico.
authors.forename: Luis Mario
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Martínez
authors.affiliation: b Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School , Boston , MA , USA.|c Division of Health Sciences and Technology , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.|e Department of Chemical Engineering , Northeastern University , Boston , MA , USA.
authors.forename: Nasim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Annabi
authors.affiliation: b Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School , Boston , MA , USA.|c Division of Health Sciences and Technology , Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.|d Microsystems Technologies Laboratories, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Cambridge , MA , USA.|f Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University , Boston , MA , USA.|g Department of Physics , King Abdulaziz University , Jeddah , Saudi Arabia , and.|h Department of Bioindustrial Technologies , College of Animal Bioscience and Technology, Konkuk University , Hwayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu , Seoul , Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khademhosseini
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000191:economics / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D029043:Ebolavirus / Q000235:genetics; D006023:Glycoproteins / Q000276:immunology; D019142:Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D006023:Glycoproteins; D014764:Viral Proteins
keywords: Ebola; GP; epidemic; mAbs; monoclonal antibodies; therapeutic