Microneutralization (MN) (various formats)
The microneutralization assay is a versatile, cell‑based method used to assess functional neutralizing antibody responses against viruses exhibiting diverse entry mechanisms and replication characteristics. To accommodate virus‑specific infection pathways, the assay can be implemented using different permissive cell systems and experimental formats selected according to viral tropism, receptor usage, and cytopathogenic features.
In the microneutralization assay, heat‑inactivated, serially diluted serum samples are incubated with a standardized amount of infectious virus prior to inoculation onto the selected cell monolayers. Virus neutralization is subsequently assessed using assay‑appropriate readouts, including visual or colorimetric detection of cytopathic effect, immunostaining or immunofluorescence‑based detection of infected cells, or other validated quantitative endpoints. Neutralizing activity is expressed as the reciprocal of the highest serum dilution that inhibits viral infection according to predefined assay‑specific criteria. Customized neutralization assays in VisMederi include microneutralization ELISA-based for RSV (Establishment and validation of a high-throughput micro-neutralization assay for respiratory syncytial virus (subtypes A and B).), colorimetric CPE-based microneutralization for SARS-COV-2 (Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies using a CPE-based colorimetric live virus micro-neutralization assay in human serum samples.), microneutralization ELISA-based assay for hMPV (Design and validation of a semi-quantitative microneutralization assay for human Metapneumovirus A1 and B1 subtypes.), among the others.
