Generation and selection of a panel of pan-filovirus single-chain antibodies using cell-free ribosome display

Filoviruses, which include ebolaviruses and marburgvirus, can cause outbreaks of highly lethal hemorrhagic fever. This disease causes significant morbidity and mortality in humans and non-human primates, with human fatality rates reaching 90% during some outbreaks. Currently, there is lack of licensed vaccines or antivirals for these viruses. Since early symptoms of filovirus infection mimic more common diseases, there is a strong unmet public health and biodefense need for broad-spectrum filovirus rapid diagnostics. We have generated a panel of mouse single-chain Fvantibodies (scFvs) to filovirus glycoproteins (GPs) using cell-free ribosome display and determined their cross-reactivity profiles to all known filovirus species. Two scFvs (4-2 and 22-1) were able to detect all known Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus species. This is the first report on ribosome display scFvs that can detect a broad set of filovirus GPs, which demonstrates the potential for use in diagnostics.