Team:WLC-Milwaukee/Norovirus

Antinorovirus Particle Antibody

Another aspect of our plasmid is the addition of an anti-norovirus monoclonal antibody to the plasmid. Noroviruses are one of the leading causes of gastroenteritis worldwide. This is due to the relative ease of transmission of the virus. The norovirus is usually transmitted via contaminated food and water, the fecal-oral route, or from the vomit from a person who has been infected. The norovirus particles can remain on environmental surfaces or can be aerosolized. All of these methods can cause infection when a susceptible person comes into contact with the viral particles.[1]

People that are most susceptible to the norovirus include children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised.[2] When these populations are infected, the virus will generally cause gastroenteritis – a 2-3 day long sickness characterized by “nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, myalgias, and non-bloody diarrhea”.[1] These types of diarrheal sicknesses are the leading cause of pediatric death within developing countries.[3] Due to the prevalence of illness and death caused by the norovirus in developing countries, we thought it was fitting to include an extra benefit to our probiotic: an anti-norovirus monoclonal antibody.

Our plasmid contains an antinorovirus particle antibody in fusion with LPP-OmpA. Lpp-OmpA has part of the major outer membrane lipoprotein and an outer membrane porin OmpA fragment. The antinorovirus monoclonal antibody binds to the C-terminus through the cytoplasm membrane and into the periplasm. OmpA then introduces itself into the outer membrane, thus displaying the antibody extracellularly. This displays the C-terminus and antibody.[4] Here, the antibody binds to the native recombinant norovirus particles which inhibits the virus’s interactions with the cells of the infected host.