{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,8]],"date-time":"2026-03-08T04:07:11Z","timestamp":1772942831847,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,4]],"date-time":"2025-03-04T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1741046400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"French Ministry of Health","award":["E024519"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["E024519"]}]},{"name":"Institut Pasteur","award":["E024519"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["E024519"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Microorganisms"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Serum bactericidal assay (SBA) is a functional assay that evaluates infection- and vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies representing the serological correlate of protection against Neisseria meningitidis. However, it is time consuming due to its readout using the enumeration of colony-forming units (CFUs), making this conventional SBA (C-SBA) difficult for large-scale use. We developed a new SBA method that takes advantage of a bioluminescence N. meningitidis serogroup B (BioLux-SBA). The assay development steps involved the human complement source validation, the setup of the optimal incubation time, and the assessment of intra-day and inter-day variability. BioLux-SBA was then compared to C-SBA using a serum collection of Norman children vaccinated in 2011 with MenBvac, an OMV meningococcal vaccine. While a conventional approach requests 48 h of work to test 24 sera per day, BioLux-SBA takes only 5 h to test 96 sera per day. The SBA titers (n = 10) correlated with R2 of 0.98 (p-value &lt; 0.0001). The deposition of terminal complement components (C5b-C9) measured by flow cytometry on the bacterial surface well correlated with BioLux SBA titers. This high-throughput method to evaluate the immunogenicity of meningococcal vaccines appears to be a reliable method for an OMV meningococcal B vaccine and requires further assessment in other laboratories and against other meningococcal vaccines.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/microorganisms13030595","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,4]],"date-time":"2025-03-04T13:31:31Z","timestamp":1741095091000},"page":"595","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["A Bioluminescence-Based Serum Bactericidal Assay to Detect Bactericidal Antibodies Against Neisseria meningitidis in Human Sera"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-6748-2812","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Giulia","family":"Fantoni","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut Pasteur, Invasive Bacterial Infections, Universit\u00e9 Paris Cit\u00e9, F-75006 Paris, France"},{"name":"Department of Biotechnology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2887-1732","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ala-Eddine","family":"Deghmane","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut Pasteur, Invasive Bacterial Infections, Universit\u00e9 Paris Cit\u00e9, F-75006 Paris, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fran\u00e7ois","family":"Caron","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Infectious Diseases, INSERM, University of Normandie Caen-Rouen, Normandie University, DYNAMICURE UMR 1311, CHU Rouen, F-76000 Rouen, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Muhamed-Kheir","family":"Taha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut Pasteur, Invasive Bacterial Infections, Universit\u00e9 Paris Cit\u00e9, F-75006 Paris, France"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,4]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4939-9202-7_1","article-title":"An Overview of Neisseria meningitidis","volume":"Volume 1969","author":"Hollingshead","year":"2019","journal-title":"Neisseria meningitidis"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5093","DOI":"10.1016\/j.vaccine.2006.03.091","article-title":"Neisseria meningitidis group B correlates of protection and assay standardization\u2014International meeting report Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 16\u201317 March 2005","volume":"24","author":"Borrow","year":"2006","journal-title":"Vaccine"},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e1661","DOI":"10.1093\/cid\/ciaa1244","article-title":"First real world evidence of meningococcal group B vaccine, 4CMenB, protection against meningococcal group W disease; prospective enhanced national surveillance, England","volume":"73","author":"Ladhani","year":"2021","journal-title":"Clin. 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