title: Epitope mapping of alpha-transforming growth factor: evidence of an immunodominant region.
abstract: Antisera were produced in rabbits and sheep against both full-length synthetic rat alpha-transforming growth factor and peptides corresponding to the carboxy-terminal 17 amino acids. These antisera were used to develop a peptide based radioimmunoassay of alpha-TGF. All antisera reacted only with a restricted region of the alpha-TGF corresponding to the 8 residues (43-50) at the carboxy-terminus: (formula; see text) A series of synthetic peptides representing deletions or substitutions of amino acids in this carboxy-terminal region were tested for competition with 125I-alpha-TGF. All changes in the above peptide sequence resulted in a marked reduction in competition. All of the polyclonal antisera demonstrated similar specificity whether they were produced against the 50 amino acid, full-length alpha-TGF, against shorter 17 amino acid and 8 amino acid carboxy-terminal sequences.
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D001667:Binding, Competitive; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D007106:Immune Sera / Q000276:immunology; D007163:Immunosorbent Techniques; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000276:immunology; D010455:Peptides / Q000276:immunology*; D011817:Rabbits / Q000276:immunology; D011863:Radioimmunoassay; D012756:Sheep / Q000276:immunology; D015291:Transforming Growth Factors
chemical_list: D000939:Epitopes; D007106:Immune Sera; D010446:Peptide Fragments; D010455:Peptides; D015291:Transforming Growth Factors