Detection of major capsid protein of infectious myonecrosis virus in shrimps using monoclonal antibodies

Infectious myonecrosis virus (IMNV) has been causing a progressive disease in farm-reared shrimps in Brazil and Indonesia. Immunodiagnostic methods for IMNV detection, although reliable, are not employed currently because monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against this virus are not available. In this study, a fragment of the IMNV major capsid protein gene, comprising amino acids 300-527 (IMNV300-527), was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The nucleotide sequence of the recombinant IMNV300-527 fragment displayed a high degree of identity to the major capsid protein of IMNV isolates from Brazil (99%) and Indonesia (98%). Ten MAbs were generated against the expressed fragment, and eight of these, mostly IgG2a or IgG2b, were able to bind to IMNV in tissue extracts from shrimps infected naturally in immunodot-blot assays. Six of these MAbs recognized a ∼100 kDa protein in a Western-blot, which is the predicted mass of IMNV major capsid protein, and also bound to viral inclusions present in muscle fibroses and in coagulative myonecrosis, as demonstrated by immunohistochemistry. Among all those MAbs created, four did not cross-react with non-infected shrimp tissues; this observation supports their applicability as a sensitive and specific immunodiagnosis of IMNV infection in shrimps.