Monoclonal antibodies against VP7 of bluetongue virus.

VP7 is a major group-specific protein of the bluetongue virus (BTV), and is therefore a candidate for use as a diagnostic reagent. In this study, BALB/c mice were immunized with BTV16, and the lymphocyte hybridoma technique and indirect ELISA screening method were employed to obtain two strains of hybridoma cells secreting specific monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to BTV16. Eukaryotic recombinant plasmids coding for 10 segments of BTV16 separately were transfected into BHK-21 cells, respectively, followed by immunofluorescence, showing that two MAbs only reacted with BTV-VP7. Western blot analysis showed the same result. Indirect immunofluorescence results indicated that two of the MAbs present different response spectrums with BTV1~24 serotypes. These results indicate that these MAbs may be good candidates for a specific diagnostic method and functional exploration of the VP7 protein.