Analysis Of Hcv Multi-epitope Synthetic Peptide Compound Antigen Immunological Traits

Hepatitis C is one of worldwide epidemics, caused by HCV(hepatitis C virus).Research has indentified that HCV is sRNA virus belonging to flaviviridea family ,which genome codes a integral peptide including envelope protein(E),core protein(C) and non-structural protein(NS) and so on. The enzymed peptides and RNA assemble integral virus particle. It was reported 6 genotypes and numbers of serotypes in the world. In China the mainly prevail strains are I and II. HCV is inclined to chronic active hepatitis, and relates to liver cirrosis (LC) and hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC). Whereas, it is not yet satisficting proplylactic and therapy methods, the early diagnosis is a effective approch to prevent HCV transmition. HCV diagnosis in laboratory relies upon detecting HCV Ab, but the assay is limited by the window period of antibody and the immunosilent infection. Detecting antigen is an alternative to solve these problems.In our previous study , 7 conserved T and/or B cell epitopes were selected from HCV structural and non-structural protein. Synthenic multi-epitope gene B2 was constructed in pBV220 vector. Relational experiments have manifested that this multi-epitope antigen can not only incited CTL response, but also induced HCV specific antibody,which recognized with many subtype of HCV, but a desirable high titer was not detected.In this research, B2 gene of HCV was highly expressed as a fusion protein (Trx-B2) by cloning into pThioHisA, and induced specific anti-HCV antibody in higher titer than unmodified B2 protein after immunize mice or rabbit.The results showed antigen Trx-B2 has obvious immunogenicity and induced specific antibody,which might be able to serve as diagnosis HCV. Consequently, this PcAb of rabbit was used to coated Immulon plate, and a method of both antibodys sandwiching antigens was developed to detect 32 HCV positive serum and 32 nomal serum.Results show that ratio of positive are 87.5%and 43.75% respectively.The above studing implies the further learning about immunology mechanism of multi-epitope antigen synthenic peptide of HCV. The results lays foundation forfurther investigating an effective diagnosis agent and supplying opportunity fordevelopment of HCV vaccine protectivity to any genotype of HCV.