title: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for riboflavin carrier protein and modified protein: application for epitope analysis.
abstract: Rabbit antibodies to native riboflavin carrier protein (RCP), are to a large extent directed towards the conformational epitopes and antibodies to disulphide bond reduced carboxymethylated riboflavin carrier protein (RCM-RCP) to the sequential epitopes. Taking advantage of this premise and in order to map the epitopes of RCP recognized by the antibodies, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays were validated for RCP and RCM-RCP using the Avidin-Biotin system. The usefulness of these assays were illustrated when antigenicity of peptides derived from RCM-RCP following trypsinization were examined. Two major (T1,T2) and one minor peptide (T3) fractions were obtained when the tryptic peptides were fractionated on DEAE-cellulose. RCP has a blocked N-terminal. Tryptic peptides (T1 and T2) on microsequencing revealed the absence of an N-terminal amino acid, indicating that these fragments emanate from the N-terminal region of RCP. In support of this observation is the finding that antipeptide antibody to cRCP (10-24) of cRCP interacted with T1 as well as T2 indicating the presence of the sequential epitope (10-24) of cRCP in these fragments. In RCP-ELISA, only T2 displaced RCP and peptides T1 and T2 displaced RCM-RCP in RCM-RCP ELISA. Differences in the ability of these fragments (T1 and T2) to displace RCP and RCM-RCP reflect the subtle changes in the spatial structures of these epitopes in RCP and RCM-RCP.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Research in Reproduction (ICMR), Parel, Bombay.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Natraj
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nambiar
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mahale
authors.forename: K S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Iyer
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000032:analysis* / Q000276:immunology; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D000939:Epitopes / Q000032:analysis; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010455:Peptides / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000276:immunology; D012256:Riboflavin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; D000939:Epitopes; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D010446:Peptide Fragments; D010455:Peptides; C019079:riboflavin-binding protein; D012256:Riboflavin