Toxins (Apr 2022)

Development and Characterization of Anti-<i>Naja ashei</i> Three-Finger Toxins (3FTxs)-Specific Monoclonal Antibodies and Evaluation of Their In Vitro Inhibition Activity

  • Ernest Z. Manson,
  • Mutinda C. Kyama,
  • Josephine Kimani,
  • Aleksandra Bocian,
  • Konrad K. Hus,
  • Vladimír Petrilla,
  • Jaroslav Legáth,
  • James H. Kimotho

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins14040285
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 4
p. 285

Abstract

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Antivenom immunotherapy is the mainstay of treatment for snakebite envenoming. Most parts of the world affected by snakebite envenoming depend on broad-spectrum polyspecific antivenoms that are known to contain a low content of case-specific efficacious immunoglobulins. Thus, advances in toxin-specific antibodies production hold much promise in future therapeutic strategies of snakebite envenoming. We report anti-3FTxs monoclonal antibodies developed against N. ashei venom in mice. All the three test mAbs (P4G6a, P6D9a, and P6D9b) were found to be IgG antibodies, isotyped as IgG1. SDS-PAGE analysis of the test mAbs showed two major bands at approximately 55 and 29 kDa, suggestive of immunoglobulin heavy and light chain composition, respectively. The immunoaffinity-purified test mAbs demonstrated higher binding efficacy to the target antigen compared to negative control. Similarly, a cocktail of the test mAbs was found to induce a significantly higher inhibition (p-value p-value = 0.9029). The inhibition induced by the 3FTxs polyclonal antibodies was significantly different from the two antivenoms (p-value < 0.0001). Our results demonstrate the prospects of developing toxin-specific monoclonal-based antivenoms for snakebite immunotherapy.

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