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Zika virus is a flavivirus, which was introduced into Brazil from the Pacific Islands and spread rapidly throughout the Americas. It became the first major infectious disease linked to human birth defects and created a global alarm that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Due to high cross-reactivity between the different flaviviruses, current commercial serological assays have limited specificity. Recently developed non-structural 1 (NS1) protein-based ELISA assay significantly improved the specificity, but reduced the sensitivity. Here, utilizing our magnetic modulation biosensing (MMB) system, we present a highly sensitive and specific Zika IgM & IgG serological tests. Twenty Zika positive (reverse transcription-PCR) serum specimens from days 2–60 were tested and compared to a prior study done with commercial Euroimmun Anti-ZIKV ELISA IgM and IgG. Dose response of recombinant human IgG and human IgM antibodies showed that the MMB has a limit of detection that is an order of magnitude better than the commercial Euroimmun kit. The MMB sensitivity of the IgM and IgG assays was 100%. In comparison, the sensitivity of the Euroimmun kit was 30-60%.
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