SPECIAL REPORT

SPECIAL REPORT

Cell Research (2003); 13(3):141-145

Identification of an epitope of SARS-coronavirus nucleocapsid protein

Ying LIN^1,*, Xu SHEN^1,*, Rui Fu YANG^2,*, Yi Xue LI^1,*,Yong Yong JI¹, You Yu HE¹ , Mu De SHI¹, Wei LU¹, Tie Liu SHI¹, Jin WANG², Hong Xia WANG², Hua Liang JIANG¹, Jian Hua SHEN¹, You Hua XIE¹, Yuan WANG¹, Gang PEI¹, Bei Fen SHEN², Jia Rui WU^1,**, Bing SUN^1,**

¹Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Institute of Materia Medica, Bioinformation Center, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China
²Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing 100071, China

Received June-1-2003 Revised June-4-2003 Accepted June-4-2003

^*The authors contributed equally to the work.

Correspondence: Jia Rui WU wujr@sunm.shcnc.ac.cn Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. and Bing SUN 0086-21-54921376 (phone) 0086-21-54921011 (fax) bsun@sibs.ac.cn Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yueyang Road, Shanghai 200031, China

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The nucleocapsid (N) protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is a major virion structural protein. In this study, two epitopes (N1 and N2) of the N protein of SARS-CoV were predicted by bioinformatics analysis. After immunization with two peptides, the peptides-specific antibodies were isolated from the immunized rabbits. The further experiments demonstrated that N1 peptide-induced polyclonal antibodies had a high affinity to bind to E. coli expressed N protein of SARS-CoV. Furthermore, it was confirmed that N1 peptide-specific IgG antibodies were detectable in the sera of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patients. The results indicated that an epitope of the N protein has been identified and N protein specific Abs were produced by peptide immunization, which will be useful for the study of SARS-CoV.

Key words: severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus, necleocapsid protein, epitope, polyclonal antibody, antiserum.