Epidemic Preparedness-Leishmania tarentolae as an Easy-to-Handle Tool to Produce Antigens for Viral Diagnosis: Application to COVID-19.

ABSTRACT: To detect and prevent emerging epidemics, discovery platforms are urgently needed, for the rapid development of diagnostic assays. Molecular diagnostic tests for COVID-19 were developed shortly after the isolation of SARS-CoV-2. However, serological tests based on antiviral antibody detection, revealing previous exposure to the virus, required longer testing phases, due to the need to obtain correctly folded and glycosylated antigens. The delay between the identification of a new virus and the development of reliable serodiagnostic tools limits our readiness to tackle future epidemics. We suggest that the protozoan Leishmania tarentolae can be used as an easy-to-handle microfactory for the rapid production of viral antigens to face emerging epidemics. We engineered L. tarentolae<

SUBMITTER: Varotto-Boccazzi I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8710741 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature