Location: Foodborne Toxin Detection and Prevention Research
Project Number: 2030-42000-053-006-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 29, 2020
End Date: Sep 28, 2025
Objective:
The objectives of this project are to develop monoclonal antibodies against botulinum neurotoxins and their associated proteins for use in detection or diagnostic assays. Toxins will also be used to determine the effectiveness of new small molecule drugs or antibody therapeutic treatments in in vitro cell assays or in vivo mouse models of intoxication.
Approach:
There are currently seven known serotypes of BoNT (BoNT/ A to G) with other new or chimeric serotypes (FA, X, etc) and subtypes identified recently. Amino acids of subtypes from each serotype can differ greatly. It is therefore important and a challenge to develop monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that recognize a wide range of serotypes and their subtypes for use in detection or diagnostics assays. We will develop monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that recognized all BoNTs that cause human disease and use them to develop highly sensitive detection assays such as the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) or other immunoassays. We will further test these antibodies for toxin neutralization in in vivo toxin neutralization assays.
