Baculovirus Surface Display of Hemagglutinin and Neuraminidase for Monoclonal Antibody Production

The H7N9 influenza virus that emerged in 2013 is a dangerous infectious disease with a high mortality rate of up to 40%. Developing effective monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to detect and treat the infection of this virus is therefore critical. In this study, we expressed hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) of H7N9 (A/Anhui/1/2013) on the surface of baculovirus (i.e., HA7-Bac and NA9-Bac). Our results showed that both HA or NA proteins displayed on HA7-Bac or NA9-Bac could well maintain their native biological function. Mice antisera derived from the injections of either HA7-Bac- or NA9-Bac exhibited high inhibitory activity in the hemagglutination and neuraminidase assay of H7N9 virus. mAbs generated by immunization with HA7-Bac exhibited high neutralizing activity against H7N9 virus infectivity in cell assays, whereas mAbs generated by immunization with NA9-Bac inhibited neuraminidase activity. These results proved that baculovirus display of HA and NA from H7N9 could be convenient agents to generate neutralizing mAbs against virus infection.