Original Research

B-cell epitopes of African horse sickness virus serotype 4 recognised by immune horse sera

Evans M. Mathebula, Frederika E. Faber, Wouter van Wyngaardt, Antoinette van Schalkwyk, Alri Pretorius, Jeanni Fehrsen
Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research | Vol 84, No 1 | a1313 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ojvr.v84i1.1313 | © 2017 Evans M. Mathebula, Frederika E. Faber, Wouter van Wyngaardt, Antoinette van Schalkwyk, Alri Pretorius, Jeanni Fehrsen | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 13 July 2016 | Published: 24 February 2017

About the author(s)

Evans M. Mathebula, New Generation Vaccines Programme, Agricultural Research Council - Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute; Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Frederika E. Faber, New Generation Vaccines Programme, Agricultural Research Council - Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, South Africa
Wouter van Wyngaardt, New Generation Vaccines Programme, Agricultural Research Council - Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, South Africa
Antoinette van Schalkwyk, Molecular Epidemiology and Diagnostics, Agricultural Research Council - Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, South Africa
Alri Pretorius, New Generation Vaccines Programme, Agricultural Research Council - Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute; Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Jeanni Fehrsen, New Generation Vaccines Programme, Agricultural Research Council - Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute; Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases, University of Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

Identifying antigenic proteins and mapping their epitopes is important for the development of diagnostic reagents and recombinant vaccines. B-cell epitopes of African horse sickness virus (AHSV) have previously been mapped on VP2, VP5, VP7 and NS1, using mouse, rabbit and chicken monoclonal antibodies. A comprehensive study of the humoral immune response of five vaccinated horses to AHSV-4 antigenic peptides was undertaken. A fragmented-genome phage display library expressing a repertoire of AHSV-4 peptides spanning the entire genome was constructed. The library was affinity selected for binders on immobilised polyclonal immunoglobulin G (IgG) isolated from horse sera collected pre- and post-immunisation with an attenuated AHSV-4 monovalent vaccine. The DNA inserts of binding phages were sequenced with Illumina high-throughput sequencing. The data were normalised using preimmune IgG-selected sequences. More sequences mapped to the genes coding for NS3, VP6 and VP5 than to the other genes. However, VP2 and VP5 each had more antigenic regions than each of the other proteins. This study identified a number of epitopes to which the horse’s humoral immune system responds during immunisation with AHSV-4.

Keywords

African horse sickness; genome-targeted phage display; B-cell epitope; high throughput sequencing

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Crossref Citations

1. A correlation between capsid protein VP2 and the plaque morphology of African horse sickness virus in cell culture
Mathilde L. Schade-Weskott, Antoinette van Schalkwyk, J. J. O. Koekemoer
Virus Genes  vol: 54  issue: 4  first page: 527  year: 2018  
doi: 10.1007/s11262-018-1567-y