Synthetic Peptide-Based Antibody Detection for Diagnosis of Chikungunya Infection with and without Neurological Complications

Abstract

Synthetic peptide-based diagnosis of Chikungunya can be an efficient and more accessible approach in immunodiagnostics. Here, we describe the identification of Chikungunya-specific 40 kD protein for development of synthetic peptide-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of Chikungunya virus-specific antibodies in the patient’s sample. The total sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis protein profile of the patient’s sample can be done to identify specific protein bands. The identified proteins can be subjected to liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for characterization. After characterization, immunogenic peptides can be designed using softwares and subsequently synthesized chemically. The peptides can be used to develop more specific, sensitive, and simpler diagnostic assay.