Production and characterization of antibodies to mouse scrapie-amyloid protein elicited by non-carrier linked synthetic peptide immunogens.

Two polyclonal antibodies were raised by immunizing rabbits with two non carrier-linked synthetic peptides whose amino acid sequences corresponded to codons 89-107 (peptide P1) and 219-233 (peptide P2) of the translated cDNA sequence of murine PrP protein. These free peptides, whose structural characteristics in solution were studied by circular dichroism, elicited a reasonable immunologic response in animals. Both antibodies still recognized the corresponding immunogens after affinity chromatography purification. However, only antibodies raised to the former sequence reacted by immunoblot with a purified preparation of murine scrapie amyloid protein. These findings are discussed together with their correlation to peptide structure and the effectiveness of this simplified immunization procedure.