GENERATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A NEUTRALIZING MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY AGAINST RABIES VIRUS

Rabies is a zoonotic disease, for which effective treatment methods after the onset of clinical symptoms have not been developed yet. Polyclonal sera, both human and equine, along with vaccines are important means of disease prophylaxis. However, due to adverse reactions to the immunoglobulins of animal origin, high cost, and limited availability of the safer human serum, polyclonal antibodies should be substituted for a stable and efficient preparation, which is recombinant neutralizing antirabies monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). This paper reports generation of the humanized mAb 1C5, which binds with the antigenic site (AS) III of the rabies virus glycoprotein (RABVG) and demonstrates high virus neutralization activity in the fluorescent antibody virus neutralization test, as a result of expression in the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells.