Identification of a phosphatase-sensitive epitope of rabies virus nucleoprotein which is recognized by a monoclonal antibody 5-2-26.

We have investigated a phosphatase-sensitive sequential epitope of the nucleoprotein (N), one of the phosphoproteins of rabies virus, which is recognized by the monoclonal antibody (MAb) #5-2-26. The epitope was shared in common by all of the rabies virus strains we tested, including the HEP, ERA, CVS and Japanese strains (Nishigahara and Komatsukawa). Thin layer chromatography of the acid hydrolyzates of 32P-labeled N protein showed that the protein contained phosphoserine and phosphothreonine at a molar ratio of about 4 to 1, while no phosphotyrosine was detected. Immunoprecipitation studies with several deletion mutants of the N protein showed that the epitope is located in a region spanning from amino acid 344 to 415. If the phosphatase-sensitive epitope is located at or near the phosphoamino acid, the location of the latter could be narrowed further to a region from amino acid 354 to 389 by comparing the amino-acid sequences among the viral strains. To examine this assumption, point mutation was introduced by amino-acid substitution with alanine at either of five potential phosphorylation sites (i.e., positions 354, 375, 377, 386 and 389) in the 354-389 region. Among those, only one substitution, at position 389, greatly affected the antigenicity. Substitution of serine-389 by threonine also reduced the antigenicity. These results strongly suggest that serine-389 is a phosphorylation site and essential for constructing or stabilizing the antigenic structure for MAb 5-2-26.