Recovery and altered neutralization specificities of chimeric viruses containing capsid protein domain exchanges from antigenically distinct strains of feline calicivirus.

Feline calicivirus (FCV) strains can show significant antigenic variation when tested for cross-reactivity with antisera produced against other FCV strains. Previous work has demonstrated the presence of hypervariable amino acid sequences in the capsid protein of FCV (designated regions C and E) that were postulated to constitute the major antigenic determinants of the virus. To examine the involvement of hypervariable sequences in determining the antigenic phenotype, the nucleotide sequences encoding the E regions from three antigenically distinct parental FCV strains (CFI, KCD, and NADC) were exchanged for the equivalent sequences in an FCV Urbana strain infectious cDNA clone. Two of the three constructs were recovered as viable, chimeric viruses. In six additional constructs, of which three were recovered as viable virus, the E region from the parental viruses was divided into left (N-terminal) and right (C-terminal) halves and engineered into the infectious clone. A final viable construct contained the C, D, and E regions of the NADC parental strain. Recovered chimeric viruses showed considerable antigenic variation from the parental viruses when tested against parental hyperimmune serum. No domain exchange was able to confer complete recognition by parental antiserum with the exception of the KCD E region exchange, which was neutralized at a near-homologous titer with KCD antiserum. These data demonstrate that it is possible to recover engineered chimeric FCV strains that possess altered antigenic characteristics. Furthermore, the E hypervariable region of the capsid protein appears to play a major role in the formation of the antigenic structure of the virion where conformational epitopes may be more important than linear in viral neutralization.