Advances in the Development of Antigens for the Most Prevalent Hepatitis for Biotechnological Applications.

Abstract

Despite numerous advances in prevention and diagnosis, viral hepatitis remains a serious global public health problem, exacerbated by underreporting of cases and limited access of vulnerable populations to accurate diagnostic methods. These infections, often asymptomatic in the early stages, frequently progress to chronic liver diseases, such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, thereby increasing global mortality rates. Currently, the use of recombinant antigens, such as recombinant proteins, multi- -epitope proteins, and synthetic peptides, represents a promising and relatively low-cost biotechnological alternative for the development of serological tests that offer high specificity and diagnostic sensitivity. Given the promising potential of these antigens, this review aimed to determine the number of studies devoted to the development of ELISAbased serological tests using these molecules for the diagnosis of hepatitis B and C, the most prevalent forms worldwide. Considering that ELISA-based tests represent a more accessible and easily replicable alternative to expensive molecular methods such as PCR, a search was conducted in the PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases using differents keywords, without date restrictions. The results demonstrated that although promising molecules exist, the number of studies using these technologies in ELISA assays is still scarce, highlighting a gap in the literature and the need for future research. Promising molecules for diagnosis were observed, derived from structural proteins in most cases. Although the results appeared promising, these antigens still need extensive and standardized validation tests to confirm their diagnostic usefulness, ensuring greater equity in access to diagnosis and improving public health surveillance strategies.