El. Blewett et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF VIRUS-SPECIFIC AND CROSS-REACTIVE MONOCLONAL-ANTIBODIES TO HERPESVIRUS-SIMIAE (B-VIRUS), Journal of General Virology, 77, 1996, pp. 2787-2793
A panel of 13 monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) was produced that detect B
virus (BV) proteins. Several of these MAbs were highly specific for BV
, while the remainder cross-reacted in varying deg rees with the other
primate alphaherpesviruses. Utilizing western blot and radioimmunopre
cipitation analysis, the MAbs were found to detect at least four disti
nct BV-infected cell antigens, several of which were composed of multi
ple polypeptides. One target antigen has been identified as the BV gly
coprotein B (gB) homologue and was recognized by both virus-specific a
nd cross-reactive MAbs. Although gB is an essential protein, none of t
he anti-gB MAbs neutralized infectious virus.