Lu Liqun, Manopo Ivanus, Leung Bernard P, Chng Hiok Hee, Ling Ai Ee, Chee Li Lian, Ooi Eng Eong, Chan Shzu-Wei, Kwang Jimmy
Animal Health Biotechnology Unit, Temasek Life Science Laboratory, National University of Singapore.
J Clin Microbiol. 2004 Apr;42(4):1570-6. doi: 10.1128/JCM.42.4.1570-1576.2004.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a novel infectious disease caused by the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV). There are four major structural proteins in the SARS-CoV, including the nucleocapsid, spike, membrane, and small envelope proteins. In this study, two sets of truncated fragments of spike protein were generated, the first were approximately 210-bp nonoverlapping fragments and the second were overlapping segments of 750 to 900 bp. From these 23 fragments, we identified a fragment of 259 amino acids (amino acids 441 to 700) that is a major immunodominant epitope. This fragment was highly expressed, and the purified fragment C could detect all 33 SARS patient serum samples tested, collected from 7 to 60 days after the onset of fever, but had no reactivity with all 66 healthy human serum samples tested. Thus, fragment C of spike protein was identified as an immunodominant antigen and could be used for serological detection of SARS-CoV infection.
严重急性呼吸综合征（SARS）是一种由SARS相关冠状病毒（SARS-CoV）引起的新型传染病。SARS-CoV中有四种主要结构蛋白，包括核衣壳蛋白、刺突蛋白、膜蛋白和小包膜蛋白。在本研究中，生成了两组刺突蛋白的截短片段，第一组是约210 bp的非重叠片段，第二组是750至900 bp的重叠片段。从这23个片段中，我们鉴定出一个259个氨基酸（第441至700位氨基酸）的片段，它是一个主要的免疫显性表位。该片段高表达，纯化的片段C能检测所有33份SARS患者血清样本，这些样本采集于发热开始后7至60天，但与所有66份检测的健康人血清样本均无反应性。因此，刺突蛋白的片段C被鉴定为免疫显性抗原，可用于SARS-CoV感染的血清学检测。
