| Literature DB >> 31518629 |
Yuru Han1, Jiyu Zhang1, Hongyan Shi1, Ling Zhou2, Jianfei Chen1, Xin Zhang1, Jianbo Liu1, Jialin Zhang1, Xiaobo Wang1, Zhaoyang Ji1, Zhaoyang Jing1, Guangyi Cong1, Jingyun Ma3, Da Shi4, Feng Li5.
Abstract
A swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus (SADS-CoV) that causes severe diarrhea in suckling piglets was identified in Southern China in 2017. To develop an antigen that is specific, sensitive, and easy to prepare for serological diagnosis, antigenic sites in the SADS-CoV nucleocapsid (N) protein were screened. We generated and characterized an N-reactive monoclonal antibody (mAb) 3E9 from mice immunized with recombinant N protein. Through fine epitope mapping of mAb 3E9 using a panel of eukaryotic-expressed polypeptides with GFP-tags, we identified the motif 343DAPVFTPAP351 as the minimal unit of the linear B-cell epitope recognized by mAb 3E9. Protein sequence alignment indicated that 343DAPVFTPAP351 was highly conserved in different SADS-CoV strains and SADS-related coronaviruses from bat, with one substitution in this motif in HKU2-related bat coronavirus. Using mAb 3E9, we observed that N protein was expressed in the cytoplasm and was in the nucleolus during SADS-CoV replication. N protein was immunoprecipitated from SADS-CoV-infected Vero E6 cells. Taken together, our results indicated that 3E9 mAb could be a useful tool to investigate the structure and function of N protein during viral replication.Entities:
Keywords: Epitope mapping; Monoclonal antibody; N protein; Swine acute diarrhea syndrome coronavirus
Year: 2019 PMID: 31518629 PMCID: PMC7114574 DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2019.197752
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Virus Res ISSN: 0168-1702 Impact factor: 3.303
Fig. 1Schematic representation of SADS-CoV N fragments used for B-cell epitope mapping. Three rounds of N peptides were conducted to investigate epitopes of the generated mAb. The original whole N (376 aa) was marked with blue, the first round was marked with green, the second round was maked with red, and the third round was marked with tawny.
Fig. 2Analysis of recombinant SADS-CoV N protein by SDS-PAGE (A) and western blot (B) with anti-GST mAb. Lane M: protein molecular weight marker; Lane 1: lysate of pGEX-6p-N-transformed E. coli BL21 (DE3) before IPTG induction; Lane 2: lysate of pGEX-6p-N-transformed E. coli BL21 (DE3) after IPTG induction; Lanes 3 and 5: purified recombinant GST-N; Lane 4: lysate of pGEX-6p-1-transformed E. coli BL21 (DE3) as negative control. M: Protein marker.
Fig. 3Application of mAb 3E9 in immunological assays and techniques. (A) Specificity of SADS-CoV mAb 3E9 by western blot. ST cells were infected with TGEV and PDCoV. Vero E6 cells were infected with PEDV and SADS-CoV. Cell lysates were incubated with anti-N mAb 3E9. Lane 1: TGEV; Lane 2: PDCoV; Lane 3: PEDV; Lane 4: SADS-CoV; Lane 5: cell lysates infected with SADS-CoV incubated with negative serum for negative control. M: Protein marker. (B) Specific reactivity of N-specific mAb with eukaryotic-expressed N. Western blot of 293 T cells transfected with eukaryotic recombinant plasmids pCMV-Myc-N or empty vector pCMV-Myc. (C) Immunoprecipitation and western blot of N protein in mock-infected and SADS-CoV-infected Vero E6 cells.
Fig. 4Subcellular localization of SADS-CoV N protein. (A) Detection by indirect immunofluorescence in cells infected with SADS-CoV. (B) Localization using pAcGFP-SADS-CoV-N in transfected Vero E6 cells. N protein is magnified in merged images. Arrow, nucleolus (No).
Fig. 5Identification of B-cell epitopes in N protein by WB. A series of N truncated fragments were cloned into pAcGFP-C1 and expressed as fusion proteins with a GFP tag. For the first round, three peptides spanning the N protein at aa 1–146 (N1), 147–249 (N2), and 250–376 (N3) were expressed. For the second round, peptide aa 250–376 was divided into two peptides, aa 250–310 (N4) and 311–376 (N5), for expression. For the last round, aa 311–376 was divided into six overlapping peptides, then decreased one by one from both ends until the minimal linear epitope was identified. (A) MAb 3E9 recognized the entire N protein (367 aa) and N3 peptide (aa 250–376). (B) In the second identification round, N5 peptide was further minimized. (C) In the last identification round, a minimal peptide 343DAPVFTPAP351 was characterized as the B-cell epitope recognized by mAb 3E9. M: Protein marker.
Fig. 6Amino acid sequence alignment of identified epitopes in SADS-CoV N protein. (A) N protein amino acid sequence for six SADS-CoV reference strains from swine and five from bat coronavirus. (B) Amino acid sequences from other Alphacoronaviruses that were homologous to SADS-CoV N protein were also aligned. Black dots indicate residues that are exact match. Homologous regions in the various Alphacoronaviruses that correspond to the identified SADS-CoV N epitope are also indicated by black dots. GenBank accession numbers are shown at the beginning.