Plant virus expressing hybrid coat protein with added murine epitope elicits autoantibody response.

A modified tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) was used to direct the synthesis of TMV coat protein hybrids containing a 13 amino acid sequence of the murine zona pellucida ZP3 protein. This hybrid protein was found to be robust and accumulate to high concentrations in inoculated plants. Virus-like particles containing the hybrid coat protein could be readily purified from infected plant tissue. Parenteral immunization with these virus-like particles as antigen resulted in serum antibody recognizing ZP3 epitope in C57BL/6J and BALB/cBy mice. The antibodies recognized synthetic ZP3 peptide and the authentic murine ZP3 glycoprotein. Antibodies were recruited in vivo to the zone pellucida in female mice.