title: Identification of a variant antigenic neutralizing epitope in hypervariable region 1 of avian leukosis virus subgroup J.
abstract: Avian leukosis virus subgroup J (ALV-J) is a hypervariable oncogenic retrovirus that causes great economic loss in poultry. Antigenic variations in the variable regions make the development of an effective vaccine a challenging task. In the present study, we identified a variant antigenic neutralizing epitope using reverse vaccinology methods. First, we predicted the B-cell epitopes in gp85 gene of ALV-J strains by DNAman and bioinformatics. Fourteen candidate epitopes were selected and linked in tandem with glycines or serines as a multi-epitope gene. The expressed protein of multi-epitope gene can induce high-titer antibody that can recognize nature ALV-J and neutralize the infectivity of ALV-J strains. Next, we identified a high effective epitope using eight overlapping fragments of gp85 gene reacting with mAb 2D5 and anti-multi-epitope sera. The identified epitope contained one of the predicted epitopes and localized in hyervariable region 1 (hr1), indicating a variant epitope. To better understand if the variants of the epitope have a good antigenicity, we synthesized four variants to react with mAb 2D5 and anti-ALV-J sera. The result showed that all variants could react with the two kinds of antibodies though they showed different antigenicity, while could not react with ALV-J negative sera. Thus, the variant antigenic neutralizing epitope was determined as 137-LRDFIA/E/TKWKS/GDDL/HLIRPYVNQS-158. The result shows a potential use of this variant epitopes as a novel multi-epitope vaccine against ALV-J in poultry.
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China.
authors: Minbo
authors: M
authors: Hou
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China.
authors: Defang
authors: D
authors: Zhou
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China.
authors: Gen
authors: G
authors: Li
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China; Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Biotechnology and Disease Control and Prevention, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China.
authors: Huijun
authors: H
authors: Guo
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China; Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Biotechnology and Disease Control and Prevention, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China.
authors: Jianzhu
authors: J
authors: Liu
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China; Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Biotechnology and Disease Control and Prevention, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China.
authors: Guihua
authors: G
authors: Wang
authors: Delicious Food Co. Ltd, Weifang 262216, China.
authors: Qiankun
authors: Q
authors: Zheng
authors: College of Veterinary Medicine, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China; Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Biotechnology and Disease Control and Prevention, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai'an 271018, China. Electronic address: czqsd@126.com.
authors: Ziqiang
authors: Z
authors: Cheng
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000276:immunology; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood; D000940:Antigenic Variation; D000956:Antigens, Viral / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D001354:Avian Leukosis Virus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D002645:Chickens; D018985:Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte / Q000235:genetics*; D009500:Neutralization Tests; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D000956:Antigens, Viral; D018985:Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins; C107403:glycoprotein 85, avian leukosis virus
keywords: Avian leukosis virus subgroup J; Reverse vaccinology.; Variant epitope