Glycoprotein G of herpes simplex virus type 1: identification of type-specific epitopes by human antibodies

• Published in: Journal of general virology 2000-04, Vol.81 (4), p.1033-1040
• Main Authors: Tunback, Petra, Liljeqvist, Jan-Ake, Lowhagen, Gun-Britt, Bergstrom, Tomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Antibodies; Antibodies - immunology; Antibody Specificity; Antigens; Antigens, Viral - genetics; Antigens, Viral - immunology; Dermatologi och venereologi; Dermatology and Venereal Diseases; Epitope Mapping; Epitopes; Epitopes - genetics; Epitopes - immunology; genetics; glycoprotein G-1; glycoprotein G-2; Herpes simplex virus 1; Herpesvirus 1; Herpesvirus 1, Human - immunology; Human; Humans; immunology; Molecular Sequence Data; Sequence Alignment; Viral; Viral Envelope Proteins; Viral Envelope Proteins - genetics; Viral Envelope Proteins - immunology
• ISSN: 0022-1317; 1465-2099
• DOI: 10.1099/0022-1317-81-4-1033

Departments of Clinical Virology 1 and Dermatovenereology 2 , Göteborg University, Guldhedsgatan 10 B, S-413 46, Göteborg, Sweden Author for correspondence: Tomas Bergström. Fax [phone]. e-mail Tomas.Bergstrom{at}microbio.gu.se Serological diagnosis of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections requires assays based on antigens that expose type-specific determinants. This study was designed to outline the B-cell epitopes of the type-specific glycoprotein G-1 (gG-1) of HSV type 1 (HSV-1), by investigating the reactivity of human anti-gG-1 antibodies, purified from 21 HSV-1-isolation-proven patient sera, to cellulose-bound synthetic peptides spanning the entire gG-1 sequence. The epitope mapping demonstrated that these antibodies bound preferentially to antigenic determinants that localized to regions with a high degree of amino acid similarity to the corresponding glycoprotein in HSV-2, gG-2. In spite of this, the purified anti-gG-1 antibodies were found to be non-reactive to native gG-2 antigen, as well as to overlapping gG-2 peptides, thus supporting the role of gG-1 as a prototype HSV-1 type-specific antigen. One immunodominant region, delimited by amino acids 112–127, reacted with all purified anti-gG-1 antibodies and may be of interest for the further development of a peptide-based HSV-1 type-specific seroassay.