Place the following steps in order for a neutralization test:

Question

a. Incubate cell culture for a few days

b. Add suspected infecting virus to the patient's serum

c. Inspect cell culture for viral infection

d. Extract serum from patient

e. Mix patient serum with virus and add the mixture to a cell culture

Accepted Answer

Hello and welcome back everyone. Which of the following statements best describes the purpose of neutralization reactions in detecting immunity to viruses. A. They determine the genetic makeup of the virus B. They detect the presence and level of virus specific antibodies in the serum C. They measure the concentration of viruses in the blood for diagnostic purposes or d they assess the effectiveness of antiviral medications. Well, first of all, even before we think about, do we remember what this technique is? We always, it's always good to look at the question to see if there's clues in the question itself that can help us whether what it's asking for the names of things. And in this case, it tells us that neutralization reactions detect immunity. So we're trying to see is a person immune to a virus. Well, when we look at our answer, choices, we can notice that choice B says they detect the presence and level of virus specific antibodies. Well, what would the presence of antibodies show us antibodies present would show immunity to a virus. Once you've been exposed to the virus, your body will keep these memory B cells around. You will show antibody, the presence of antibodies in your blood. So we can induce the answers. Choice B just based on what our question is asking for. But we want this question to be helpful. So let's just be a little more thorough here. What goes on in a neutralization reaction? Well, you take a blood sample and you have serial dilutions of this sample. You then add the virus that you're exploring immunity against to the blood sample. And what will happen as a result? Well, if the person's encountered this virus before and has antibodies against it, these antibodies will coat the virus particles in the sample and prevent it from carrying out any further infections. So how do you test for whether that is the case? These samples of serum plus virus are added to cell culture plates and incubated because the virus will cause cell some cell lysis. If it infects the cells, you will see these plaques form on the plate around bacterial colonies that have been infected. So you can visualize on those culture plates if there are these plaques, that means the virus and the serum sample has been successful in infecting cells. If you don't see these plaques, it's not been successful. So that lets you determine um were there antibodies present in the serum sample and the presence of serious dilution? Serial dilutions? Excuse me, allows you to see how much or how, how many antibodies are present. If the virus is prevented from affecting even in a very low dilution or excuse me, I should say not low dilution, high level of dilution. So very low level of the amount of serum present, then you know there was a high antibody load since it took very little to neutralize that virus. So let's look at our other answer. Choices now that we have remembered the process of neutralization choice. A they determine the genetic makeup of the virus. Well, again, this only tells you if there are antibodies present, genetic makeup would be for instance, a sequencing study of the virus. So not our answer here. So I see they measure the concentration of viruses in the blood for diagnostic purposes. Well, this would be a viral load test and that would be useful if you're trying to determine, you know, is a, is a person infected and how serious an infection is this. But we're not looking for the presence of the actual virus, just the antibodies to it. So viral load would be for active infections. Whereas in neutralization reactions, we're looking more at prior infections. So the infections over there's no virus still running around the body. But you want to know is this person immune? That's why choice C is incorrect. And choice D they assess the effectiveness of antiviral medications. Well, you might be tempted to look at this if you're thinking neutralization means eliminating the virus, but that's not what we saw. That's not what neutralization means to assess effectiveness of antiviral medications. You'd look at can these medications um actually get rid of the virus or the infected cells in cell culture testing. So not our answer. So once again, the best description of the purpose of neutralization reactions in detecting immunity to viruses is choice B they detect the presence and level of virus specific antibodies in the serum. See you next video.

Key Concepts

Neutralization Test Purpose

Role of Patient Serum and Virus Interaction

Cell Culture and Viral Infection Observation

Watch next

Place the following steps in order for a neutralization test:a. Incubate cell culture for a few daysb. Add suspected infecting virus to the patient's serumc. Inspect cell culture for viral infectiond. Extract serum from patiente. Mix patient serum with virus and add the mixture to a cell culture

Key Concepts

Neutralization Test Purpose

Role of Patient Serum and Virus Interaction

Cell Culture and Viral Infection Observation

Watch next