Luciferase in the antibody tests

08/01/2019
Luciferase Immunoprecipitation System (LIPS) assay is a rapid, simple, and sensitive test to detect antibody response to respiratory syncytial virus:

Researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have developed a simple, rapid, and sensitive test that identifies individuals who have made antibodies against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most common cause of serious lower respiratory tract infection in infants and young children worldwide. RSV also affects many elderly individuals, especially those with underlying heart or lung disease, accounting for nearly as many hospitalizations as influenza.

The development of the new assay is important because it could be a valuable tool for assessing the efficacy of RSV vaccines during clinical trials since it can help to identify individuals infected with RSV following a winter season. Since many of the current candidate vaccines contain or express only one or a few of the proteins found in the virus, antibody responses to non-vaccine RSV antigens can serve as a marker of exposure and infection in subjects given these vaccines.

[link to www.fda.gov (secure)]