Nipah virus outbreak: What are monoclonal antibodies?

• Last week, India reached out to Australia to procure monoclonal antibody doses to combat the Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala.

Monoclonal Antibody

• Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the behaviour of antibodies produced by the immune system to protect against diseases and foreign substances.
• An antibody attaches itself to an antigen – a foreign substance, usually a disease-causing molecule – and helps the immune system eliminate it from the body.
• Monoclonal antibodies are specifically designed to target certain antigens.
• Niels K. Jerne, Georges J.F. Köhler and César Milstein were awarded the medicine Nobel Prize in 1984 for their work on “the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies”.

m102.4 Antibody

• According to research published in The Lancet journal of Infectious Diseases, m102.4 is a “potent, fully human” monoclonal antibody that neutralises Hendra and Nipah viruses, both outside and inside of living organisms.
• The antibody has passed phase-one clinical trials
• As of now, the drug is used on a ‘compassionate use’ basis — a treatment option that allows the use of an unauthorised medicine under strict conditions among people

How does it work?

• Monoclonal antibodies are specifically engineered and generated to target a disease.
• They are meant to attach themselves to the specific disease-causing antigen. An antigen is most likely to be a protein.
• The binding prevented the protein from exercising its regular functions, including its ability to infect other cells.
• These hybrid cells allowed the researchers to produce a single antibody clone, which came to be known as a monoclonal antibody.
• The initial technology of producing hybridoma in mice was unsustainable.
• Today, these antibodies are made using recombinant DNA technology.
• Here, the gene that codes for the monoclonal antibody’s binding region — also known as the variable region — is isolated from a B cell or synthesised in the laboratory.
• This antibody is then introduced into a host cell, often a bacterium or a mammalian cell, using recombinant DNA technology
• The host cells, called bioreactors, produce large quantities of the monoclonal antibodies which are extracted, purified, and readied for use as desired.
• The m102.4 monoclonal antibody binds itself to the immunodominant receptor-binding glycoprotein of the Nipah virus, potentially neutralising it.

Conclusion

• Despite their significant benefits, monoclonal antibodies can have limitations, such as high production costs and the potential for immune responses.
• Advances in technology, such as the development of humanized antibodies (antibodies with human components to reduce immune reactions), have addressed some of these challenges.