Human-monoclonal-antibody therapy protects nonhuman primates against advanced Lassa fever

• Published in: Nature medicine Vol. 23; no. 10; pp. 1146 - 1149
• Main Authors: Mire, Chad E, Cross, Robert W, Geisbert, Joan B, Borisevich, Viktoriya, Agans, Krystle N, Deer, Daniel J, Heinrich, Megan L, Rowland, Megan M, Goba, Augustine, Momoh, Mambu, Boisen, Mathew L, Grant, Donald S, Fullah, Mohamed, Khan, Sheik Humarr, Fenton, Karla A, Robinson, James E, Branco, Luis M, Garry, Robert F, Geisbert, Thomas W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Nature Publishing Group US 01.10.2017; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 13/1; 13/51; 631/326/596/1961; 692/699/255/2514; Animals; Antibodies; Antibodies, Monoclonal - therapeutic use; Antibodies, Neutralizing - therapeutic use; Antibodies, Viral - therapeutic use; Biomedicine; brief-communication; Cancer Research; Care and treatment; Cross Reactions; Drug dosages; Drug therapy; Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; Fatalities; Fever; Glycoproteins; Health aspects; Humans; Immune Evasion - genetics; Immunohistochemistry; Immunology; Immunotherapy; Infectious Diseases; Lassa fever; Lassa Fever - prevention & control; Lassa virus - genetics; Macaca fascicularis; Medicine; Metabolic Diseases; Molecular Medicine; Monoclonal antibodies; Neurosciences; Plasma; Primates; Random Allocation; RNA, Viral - blood; Survival Rate; Vaccines; Viral diseases; Viral Load; Viruses
• ISSN: 1078-8956; 1546-170X; 1546-170X
• DOI: 10.1038/nm.4396

Thomas Geisbert and colleagues show that a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies protects cynomolgus monkeys from lethal Lassa fever virus infection, including when administration is delayed by more than a week after viral challenge. There are no approved treatments for Lassa fever, which is endemic to the same regions of West Africa that were recently devastated by Ebola. Here we show that a combination of human monoclonal antibodies that cross-react with the glycoproteins of all four clades of Lassa virus is able to rescue 100% of cynomolgus macaques when treatment is initiated at advanced stages of disease, including up to 8 d after challenge.