@article{mbs:/content/journal/acmi/10.1099/acmi.0.000057, author = "Lester, Sandra and Harcourt, Jennifer and Whitt, Michael and Al-Abdely, Hail M. and Midgley, Claire M. and Alkhamis, Abdulrahim M. and Aziz Jokhdar, Hani A. and Assiri, Abdullah M. and Tamin, Azaibi and Thornburg, Natalie", title = "Middle East respiratory coronavirus (MERS-CoV) spike (S) protein vesicular stomatitis virus pseudoparticle neutralization assays offer a reliable alternative to the conventional neutralization assay in human seroepidemiological studies", journal= "Access Microbiology", year = "2019", volume = "1", number = "9", pages = "", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1099/acmi.0.000057", url = "https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/acmi/10.1099/acmi.0.000057", publisher = "Microbiology Society", issn = "2516-8290", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "pseudoparticle", keywords = "Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)", keywords = "microneutralization test (MNt)", keywords = "neutralizing antibodies", keywords = "luciferase", keywords = "vesicular stomatitis virus", eid = "e000057", abstract = "Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is a novel zoonotic coronavirus that was identified in 2012. MERS-CoV infection in humans can result in an acute, severe respiratory disease and in some cases multi-organ failure; the global mortality rate is approximately 35 %. The MERS-CoV spike (S) protein is a major target for neutralizing antibodies in infected patients. The MERS-CoV microneutralization test (MNt) is the gold standard method for demonstrating prior infection. However, this method requires the use of live MERS-CoV in biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) containment. The present work describes the generation and validation of S protein-bearing vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pseudotype particles (VSV-MERS-CoV-S) in which the VSV glycoprotein G gene has been replaced by the luciferase reporter gene, followed by the establishment of a pseudoparticle-based neutralization test to detect MERS-CoV neutralizing antibodies under BSL-2 conditions. Using a panel of human sera from confirmed MERS-CoV patients, the VSV-MERS-CoV particle neutralization assay produced results that were highly comparable to those of the microneutralization test using live MERS-CoV. The results suggest that the VSV-MERS-CoV-S pseudotype neutralization assay offers a highly specific, sensitive and safer alternative method to detect MERS-CoV neutralizing antibodies in human sera.", }