Delayed and highly specific antibody response to nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) revealed during natural human ZIKV infection by NS1-based capture ELISA

BACKGROUND: Zika virus (ZIKV) had spread rapidly in the past few years in southern hemisphere where dengue virus (DENV) had caused epidemic problems for over half a century. The high degree of cross-reactivity of Envelope (E) protein specific antibody responses between ZIKV and DENV made it challenging to perform differential diagnosis between the two infections using standard ELISA method for E protein. METHODS: Using an IgG capture ELISA, we investigated the kinetics of nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) antibody response during natural ZIKV infection and the cross-reactivity to NS1 proteins using convalescent sera obtained from patients infected by either DENV or ZIKV. RESULTS: The analyses of the sequential serum samples from ZIKV infected individuals showed NS1 specific Abs appeared 2 weeks later than E specific Abs. Notably, human sera from ZIKV infected individuals did not contain cross-reactivity to NS1 proteins of any of the four DENV serotypes. Furthermore, four out of five NS1-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) isolated from ZIKV infected individuals did not bind to DENV NS1 proteins. Only limited amount of cross-reactivity to ZIKV NS1 was displayed in 108 DENV1 immune sera at 1:100 dilution. CONCLUSIONS: The high degree of NS1-specific Abs in both ZIKV and DENV infection revealed here suggest that NS1-based diagnostics would significantly improve the differential diagnosis between DENV and ZIKV infections. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12879-018-3173-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.