Skip to main content
  • ASM
    • Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
    • Applied and Environmental Microbiology
    • Clinical Microbiology Reviews
    • Clinical and Vaccine Immunology
    • EcoSal Plus
    • Eukaryotic Cell
    • Infection and Immunity
    • Journal of Bacteriology
    • Journal of Clinical Microbiology
    • Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
    • Journal of Virology
    • mBio
    • Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews
    • Microbiology Resource Announcements
    • Microbiology Spectrum
    • Molecular and Cellular Biology
    • mSphere
    • mSystems
  • Log in
  • My alerts
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current Issue
    • Accepted Manuscripts
    • COVID-19 Special Collection
    • Archive
    • Minireviews
  • For Authors
    • Submit a Manuscript
    • Scope
    • Editorial Policy
    • Submission, Review, & Publication Processes
    • Organization and Format
    • Errata, Author Corrections, Retractions
    • Illustrations and Tables
    • Nomenclature
    • Abbreviations and Conventions
    • Publication Fees
    • Ethics Resources and Policies
  • About the Journal
    • About JCM
    • Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Board
    • For Reviewers
    • For the Media
    • For Librarians
    • For Advertisers
    • Alerts
    • RSS
    • FAQ
  • Subscribe
    • Members
    • Institutions
  • ASM
    • Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
    • Applied and Environmental Microbiology
    • Clinical Microbiology Reviews
    • Clinical and Vaccine Immunology
    • EcoSal Plus
    • Eukaryotic Cell
    • Infection and Immunity
    • Journal of Bacteriology
    • Journal of Clinical Microbiology
    • Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education
    • Journal of Virology
    • mBio
    • Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews
    • Microbiology Resource Announcements
    • Microbiology Spectrum
    • Molecular and Cellular Biology
    • mSphere
    • mSystems

User menu

  • Log in
  • My alerts
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Clinical Microbiology
publisher-logosite-logo

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current Issue
    • Accepted Manuscripts
    • COVID-19 Special Collection
    • Archive
    • Minireviews
  • For Authors
    • Submit a Manuscript
    • Scope
    • Editorial Policy
    • Submission, Review, & Publication Processes
    • Organization and Format
    • Errata, Author Corrections, Retractions
    • Illustrations and Tables
    • Nomenclature
    • Abbreviations and Conventions
    • Publication Fees
    • Ethics Resources and Policies
  • About the Journal
    • About JCM
    • Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Board
    • For Reviewers
    • For the Media
    • For Librarians
    • For Advertisers
    • Alerts
    • RSS
    • FAQ
  • Subscribe
    • Members
    • Institutions
Letter to the Editor

Kinetics of Anti-Zika Virus Antibodies after Acute Infection in Pregnant Women

Bruno Hoen, Mathieu Carpentier, Stanie Gaete, Benoît Tressières, Cécile Herrmann-Storck, Ingrid Vingadassalom, Patricia Huc-Anaïs, Anna Louise Funk, Arnaud Fontanet, Xavier de Lamballerie
Michael J. Loeffelholz, Editor
Bruno Hoen
aINSERM Centre d’Investigation Clinique 1424, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
bService de Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales, Dermatologie, Médecine Interne, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
cFaculté de Médecine Hyacinthe Bastaraud, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Bruno Hoen
Mathieu Carpentier
aINSERM Centre d’Investigation Clinique 1424, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Stanie Gaete
dCentre de Ressources Biologiques Karubiotec, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Benoît Tressières
aINSERM Centre d’Investigation Clinique 1424, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Cécile Herrmann-Storck
eLaboratoire de Microbiologie, CHU de Pointe à Pitre/Abymes, Guadeloupe, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ingrid Vingadassalom
aINSERM Centre d’Investigation Clinique 1424, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Pointe-à-Pitre, Pointe-à-Pitre, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Patricia Huc-Anaïs
fLaboratoire de Biologie Médicale, Saint-Martin, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Anna Louise Funk
gEmerging Diseases Epidemiology Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Arnaud Fontanet
gEmerging Diseases Epidemiology Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
hPACRI Unit, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Xavier de Lamballerie
iUnité des Virus Émergents (UVE), Aix-Marseille University, IRD 190, Inserm 1207, IHU Méditerranée Infection, Marseille, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Michael J. Loeffelholz
Cepheid
Roles: Editor
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
DOI: 10.1128/JCM.01151-19
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

LETTER

The kinetics of anti-Zika virus (ZIKV) antibodies after acute ZIKV infection is not well known (1, 2), especially in areas where different flaviviruses circulate (3). The objective of this study was to describe the kinetics of anti-ZIKV antibodies in women in whom an acute ZIKV infection was diagnosed during pregnancy. Within a cohort of pregnant women living in Guadeloupe, France, and exposed to ZIKV during the 2016 Zika outbreak (4), we identified 65 women who presented with an acute, symptomatic, PCR-confirmed (RealStar Zika virus reverse transcription-PCR [RT-PCR] kit 1.0; Altona Diagnostics) ZIKV infection at various times of their pregnancy with a known date of the first Zika symptoms. Serum samples obtained at delivery in all women and at various interim time points between acute ZIKV infection and delivery in 20 women (23 samples) were tested for anti-ZIKV antibodies. The 88 serum samples were batch processed using the commercially available Euroimmun enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (5, 6) and a virus neutralization test (VNT) that was performed at the French National Reference Center for Arboviruses (7) in order to detect anti-ZIKV IgM and IgG antibodies and confirm the presence of anti-ZIKV neutralizing antibodies, respectively. Moreover, a dengue virus (DENV) ELISA was performed on all samples.

The patients’ mean age was 30 years. The time between first symptoms of ZIKV infection and delivery ranged from 17 to 229 days. The mean times between ZIKV infection and delivery were 197, 119, and 50 days for women who had acute ZIKV infection during the 1st (n = 14), 2nd (n = 35), and 3rd (n = 16) trimesters of pregnancy, respectively. DENV serology was positive in all women. ZIKV serology on delivery samples was positive in 65/65 (100%; one-sided 97.5% confidence interval [CI], 94.4% to 100%) women by both the IgG ELISA and VNT assay. IgM anti-ZIKV antibodies were detected as early as 2 days after the first symptom and progressively faded away over a few weeks. They were detected on delivery samples in only 5/65 (8%) women, in whom the time intervals between acute ZIKV infection and sampling were 17, 27, 36, 38, and 142 days. IgG anti-ZIKV antibodies were negative in all 6 interim samples that had been drawn within 7 days of the first symptom. They were detected from day 13 and remained positive afterwards. The kinetics of anti-ZIKV antibodies is summarized in Fig. 1.

FIG 1
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint
FIG 1

Kinetics of anti-ZIKV antibodies in the 88 samples tested in 65 pregnant women. Note that the time intervals are between day of first Zika symptoms and the day of blood sampling. Five women delivered within 2 months of acute ZIKV infection, which explains why only 60 samples were available in the interval “After 62 days.”

The main finding of this study is that with the Euroimmun assay, IgG anti-ZIKV antibodies were detected as early as the second week after acute ZIKV infection and remained detectable until delivery in all women.

The strengths of this study are 2-fold, as follows: (i) the kinetics of antibodies could be established because the date of acute ZIKV infection was ascertained by the combination of consistent clinical symptoms and concomitant positive nucleic acid testing, and (ii) the antibodies detected by the Euroimmun ELISA were specific to ZIKV, as evidenced by the results of a seroneutralization assay. The main limitation of this study results from the small number of serum samples that were drawn between acute infection and delivery. However, these numbers were in the same range as those in two comparable studies that showed results similar to ours regarding the kinetics of anti-ZIKV IgG antibodies (1, 2).

Altogether, the pragmatic interpretation of our findings is that the absence of IgG anti-ZIKV antibodies at delivery appears to be a strong indicator of the absence of ZIKV infection during pregnancy, information that is quite useful to inform pregnant women on the potential risks for their neonates.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the women who participated in this study and acknowledge their altruism. We acknowledge all actors (physicians, midwives, clinical research assistants, health officers, and epidemiologists) who joined their efforts to help conduct this study. We are grateful to Joelle Colat-Peyron for handling serology testing at Karubiotec.

This study was funded by the French Ministry of Health (Soutien Exceptionnel à la Recherche et à l’Innovation) and by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under ZIKAlliance grant agreement no. 734548.

  • Copyright © 2019 American Society for Microbiology.

All Rights Reserved.

REFERENCES

  1. 1.↵
    1. Pasquier C,
    2. Joguet G,
    3. Mengelle C,
    4. Chapuy-Regaud S,
    5. Pavili L,
    6. Prisant N,
    7. Izopet J,
    8. Bujan L,
    9. Mansuy JM
    . 2018. Kinetics of anti-ZIKV antibodies after Zika infection using two commercial enzyme-linked immunoassays. Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis 90:26–30. doi:10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2017.09.001.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  2. 2.↵
    1. Lustig Y,
    2. Zelena H,
    3. Venturi G,
    4. van Esbroeck M,
    5. Rothe C,
    6. Perret C,
    7. Koren R,
    8. Katz-Likvornik S,
    9. Mendelson E,
    10. Schwartz E
    . 2017. Sensitivity and kinetics of an NS1-based Zika virus enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in Zika virus-infected travelers from Israel, the Czech Republic, Italy, Belgium, Germany, and Chile. J Clin Microbiol 55:1894–1901. doi:10.1128/JCM.00346-17.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  3. 3.↵
    1. Matheus S,
    2. Talla C,
    3. Labeau B,
    4. de Laval F,
    5. Briolant S,
    6. Berthelot L,
    7. Vray M,
    8. Rousset D
    . 2019. Performance of 2 commercial serologic tests for diagnosing Zika virus infection. Emerg Infect Dis 25:1153–1160. doi:10.3201/eid2506.180361.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  4. 4.↵
    1. Hoen B,
    2. Schaub B,
    3. Funk AL,
    4. Ardillon V,
    5. Boullard M,
    6. Cabié A,
    7. Callier C,
    8. Carles G,
    9. Cassadou S,
    10. Césaire R,
    11. Douine M,
    12. Herrmann-Storck C,
    13. Kadhel P,
    14. Laouénan C,
    15. Madec Y,
    16. Monthieux A,
    17. Nacher M,
    18. Najioullah F,
    19. Rousset D,
    20. Ryan C,
    21. Schepers K,
    22. Stegmann-Planchard S,
    23. Tressières B,
    24. Voluménie JL,
    25. Yassinguezo S,
    26. Janky E,
    27. Fontanet A
    . 2018. Pregnancy outcomes after ZIKV infection in French territories in the Americas. N Engl J Med 378:985–994. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1709481.
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  5. 5.↵
    1. Steinhagen K,
    2. Probst C,
    3. Radzimski C,
    4. Schmidt-Chanasit J,
    5. Emmerich P,
    6. van Esbroeck M,
    7. Schinkel J,
    8. Grobusch MP,
    9. Goorhuis A,
    10. Warnecke JM,
    11. Lattwein E,
    12. Komorowski L,
    13. Deerberg A,
    14. Saschenbrecker S,
    15. Stöcker W,
    16. Schlumberger W
    . 2016. Serodiagnosis of Zika virus (ZIKV) infections by a novel NS1-based ELISA devoid of cross-reactivity with dengue virus antibodies: a multicohort study of assay performance, 2015 to 2016. Euro Surveill 21:30426. https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2016.21.50.30426.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  6. 6.↵
    1. L’Huillier AG,
    2. Hamid-Allie A,
    3. Kristjanson E,
    4. Papageorgiou L,
    5. Hung S,
    6. Wong CF,
    7. Stein DR,
    8. Olsha R,
    9. Goneau LW,
    10. Dimitrova K,
    11. Drebot M,
    12. Safronetz D,
    13. Gubbay JB
    . 2017. Evaluation of Euroimmun anti-Zika virus IgM and IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for Zika virus serologic testing. J Clin Microbiol 55:2462–2471. doi:10.1128/JCM.00442-17.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  7. 7.↵
    1. Nurtop E,
    2. Villarroel PMS,
    3. Pastorino B,
    4. Ninove L,
    5. Drexler JF,
    6. Roca Y,
    7. Gake B,
    8. Dubot-Peres A,
    9. Grard G,
    10. Peyrefitte C,
    11. Priet S,
    12. de Lamballerie X,
    13. Gallian P
    . 2018. Combination of ELISA screening and seroneutralisation tests to expedite Zika virus seroprevalence studies. Virol J 15:192–1105. doi:10.1186/s12985-018-1105-5.
    OpenUrlCrossRef
PreviousNext
Back to top
Download PDF
Citation Tools
Kinetics of Anti-Zika Virus Antibodies after Acute Infection in Pregnant Women
Bruno Hoen, Mathieu Carpentier, Stanie Gaete, Benoît Tressières, Cécile Herrmann-Storck, Ingrid Vingadassalom, Patricia Huc-Anaïs, Anna Louise Funk, Arnaud Fontanet, Xavier de Lamballerie on behalf of the ZIKA-DFA-FE Study Group
Journal of Clinical Microbiology Oct 2019, 57 (11) e01151-19; DOI: 10.1128/JCM.01151-19

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Print

Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email

Thank you for sharing this Journal of Clinical Microbiology article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Kinetics of Anti-Zika Virus Antibodies after Acute Infection in Pregnant Women
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of Clinical Microbiology
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Kinetics of Anti-Zika Virus Antibodies after Acute Infection in Pregnant Women
Bruno Hoen, Mathieu Carpentier, Stanie Gaete, Benoît Tressières, Cécile Herrmann-Storck, Ingrid Vingadassalom, Patricia Huc-Anaïs, Anna Louise Funk, Arnaud Fontanet, Xavier de Lamballerie on behalf of the ZIKA-DFA-FE Study Group
Journal of Clinical Microbiology Oct 2019, 57 (11) e01151-19; DOI: 10.1128/JCM.01151-19
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Top
  • Article
    • LETTER
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    • REFERENCES
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

KEYWORDS

diagnosis
Zika
pregnancy
serology

Related Articles

Cited By...

About

  • About JCM
  • Editor in Chief
  • Board of Editors
  • Editor Conflicts of Interest
  • For Reviewers
  • For the Media
  • For Librarians
  • For Advertisers
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • FAQ
  • Permissions
  • Journal Announcements

Authors

  • ASM Author Center
  • Submit a Manuscript
  • Article Types
  • Resources for Clinical Microbiologists
  • Ethics
  • Contact Us

Follow #JClinMicro

@ASMicrobiology

       

ASM Journals

ASM journals are the most prominent publications in the field, delivering up-to-date and authoritative coverage of both basic and clinical microbiology.

About ASM | Contact Us | Press Room

 

ASM is a member of

Scientific Society Publisher Alliance

 

American Society for Microbiology
1752 N St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 737-3600

 

Copyright © 2021 American Society for Microbiology | Privacy Policy | Website feedback

Print ISSN: 0095-1137; Online ISSN: 1098-660X