Delayed treatment of Ebola virus infection with plant-derived monoclonal antibodies provides protection in rhesus macaques.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2012 Oct 30

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Filovirus infections can cause a severe and often fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates, including great apes. Here, three anti-Ebola virus mouse/human chimeric mAbs (c13C6, h-13F6, and c6D8) were produced in Chinese hamster ovary and in whole plant (Nicotiana benthamiana) cells. In pilot experiments testing a mixture of the three mAbs (MB-003), we found that MB-003 produced in both manufacturing systems protected rhesus macaques from lethal challenge when administered 1 h postinfection. In a pivotal follow-up experiment, we found significant protection (P < 0.05) when MB-003 treatment began 24 or 48 h postinfection (four of six survived vs. zero of two controls). In all experiments, surviving animals that received MB-003 experienced little to no viremia and had few, if any, of the clinical symptoms observed in the controls. The results represent successful postexposure in vivo efficacy by a mAb mixture and suggest that this immunoprotectant should be further pursued as a postexposure and potential therapeutic for Ebola virus exposure.

Citation

Gene Garrard Olinger, James Pettitt, Do Kim, Cara Working, Ognian Bohorov, Barry Bratcher, Ernie Hiatt, Steven D Hume, Ashley K Johnson, Josh Morton, Michael Pauly, Kevin J Whaley, Calli M Lear, Julia E Biggins, Corinne Scully, Lisa Hensley, Larry Zeitlin. Delayed treatment of Ebola virus infection with plant-derived monoclonal antibodies provides protection in rhesus macaques. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2012 Oct 30;109(44):18030-5