Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Jan;8(1):86-88.
doi: 10.7774/cevr.2019.8.1.86. Epub 2019 Jan 31.

Absence of neutralizing activity in serum 1 year after successful treatment with antivirals and recovery from MERS in South Korea

Jun Yong Choi  1   2 , Jin Ok Oh  1 , Jin Young Ahn  3 , Heun Choi  1 , Jung Ho Kim  1 , Hye Seong  1 , Su Jin Jeong  1   2 , Nam Su Ku  1   2 , Joon-Sup Yeom  1 , Jae-Phil Choi  3
Affiliations

Absence of neutralizing activity in serum 1 year after successful treatment with antivirals and recovery from MERS in South Korea

Jun Yong Choi et al. Clin Exp Vaccine Res. 2019 Jan.

Abstract

We evaluated the neutralizing activity in serum from three patients >1 year after recovery from Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) associated with mild pneumonia treated with antivirals during the MERS outbreak in South Korea at 2015. The neutralizing activity in serum was measured by pseudovirus inhibition assays. Three-fold diluted serum of subjects showed only 9.7%, 10.3%, and 2.2% reductions in relative light units. So, significant neutralizing activity was not demonstrated in any sera of three patients with mild pneumonia >1 year after being successfully treated with antiviral agents and recovering from MERS coronavirus infection.

Keywords: Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus; Neutralizing antibodies; Serum.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Inhibitory activity of patients' sera against Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus pseudovirus infection. Three-fold diluted serum of subjects 1 and 2 showed only 9.7% and 10.3% reductions in relative light unit (RLU), respectively, while that of subject 3 showed only a 2.2% reduction. Control serum was collected from a healthy volunteer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Choi JY. An outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection in South Korea, 2015. Yonsei Med J. 2015;56:1174–1176. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chong YP, Song JY, Seo YB, Choi JP, Shin HS Rapid Response Team. Antiviral treatment guidelines for Middle East respiratory syndrome. Infect Chemother. 2015;47:212–222. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Du L, Zhao G, Zhang X, et al. Development of a safe and convenient neutralization assay for rapid screening of influenza HA-specific neutralizing monoclonal antibodies. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2010;397:580–585. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhao G, Du L, Ma C, et al. A safe and convenient pseudovirus-based inhibition assay to detect neutralizing antibodies and screen for viral entry inhibitors against the novel human coronavirus MERS-CoV. Virol J. 2013;10:266. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wu X, Mao Q, Yao X, et al. Development and evaluation of a pseudovirus-luciferase assay for rapid and quantitative detection of neutralizing antibodies against enterovirus 71. PLoS One. 2013;8:e64116. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources