Development and evaluation of a new luciferase immunosorbent assay to detect GII.6 norovirus-specific IgG in different domestic and wild animals

Zhiyan Liang; Minyi Zhang; Yu Wang; Mark Momoh Koroma; Jingrong Yu; Feiyuan Zhou; Duona Jing; Jiaheng Li; Shixing Tang; Qing Chen; Ying-Chun Dai

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1213007

Development and evaluation of a new luciferase immunosorbent assay to detect GII.6 norovirus-specific IgG in different domestic and wild animals

Front Microbiol. 2023 Jul 20:14:1213007. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1213007. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Affiliation

¹ Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University (Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research), Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Noroviruses (NoVs) are the leading viral pathogens globally causing acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in humans, posing a significant global health threat and economic burden. Recent investigations revealed that human NoVs had been detected in different animals, which raises concerns about whether NoVs are potential zoonotic diseases. This study developed a novel luciferase immunosorbent assay (LISA) to detect GII.6 NoV IgG based on P protein of VP1. The LISA showed high specificity (99.20%) and sensitivity (92.00%) with 4-16 times more sensitivity compared with an ELISA. NoV-LISA was reproducible with human serum regarding the inter- and intra-assay coefficient of variance values. Potential cross-reactivity was also evaluated using mice serum immunized by other antigens, which showed that NoV-LISA could differentiate GII.6 NoV from rotavirus and various genotypes of NoV. Specific GII.6 NoV IgG was widely detected in different domestic and wild animals, including dogs, pigs, bats, rats, and home shrews, with various IgG-positive rates ranging from 2.5 to 74.4%. In conclusion, our newly developed NoV-LISA assay is suitable for NoV-specific IgG detection in humans and animals. The wide distribution of IgG antibodies against human NoV indicates potential zoonotic transmission between humans and animals.

Keywords: GII.6 norovirus; IgG; LISA; detection; domestic and wild animals.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant Number 2019A1515010951) and the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2022B1111020002).