Dipartimento di Patologia e Microbiologia Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Messina, Messina, Italy.
Peptides. 2009 Oct;30(10):1936-9. doi: 10.1016/j.peptides.2009.07.009. Epub 2009 Jul 22.
Brucella melitensis and Brucella abortus are responsible for brucellosis in bovine and ovine species and for Malta fever in humans. The lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Brucella is an important virulence factor and can elicit protective antibodies. Because of their potential importance in vaccine design and in serological diagnosis, we developed peptides mimicking the antigenic properties of distinctive antigenic determinants of Brucella LPS. These peptides were selected from several phage display random peptide libraries for their ability to bind monoclonal antibodies directed against the A- or C-type epitopes of Brucella LPS. Plasmids encoding for two of the isolated peptides induced, after DNA immunization, LPS-specific antibody responses. Although these responses were only moderate in extent, these data further suggest the feasibility of using peptide mimics of carbohydrate epitopes as immunogens, a property which may be useful in the design of novel anti-Brucella vaccines.
绵羊布鲁氏菌和牛布鲁氏菌可引起牛和羊布鲁氏菌病，并导致人类感染马耳他热。布鲁氏菌脂多糖（LPS）是一种重要的毒力因子，能激发保护性抗体。鉴于其在疫苗设计和血清学诊断中的潜在重要性，我们开发了模拟布鲁氏菌 LPS 抗原决定簇的肽段，以模仿其抗原特性。这些肽段是从几个噬菌体展示随机肽文库中选择出来的，因为它们能够与针对布鲁氏菌 LPS A 型或 C 型表位的单克隆抗体结合。编码两种分离肽的质粒在 DNA 免疫后诱导了 LPS 特异性抗体反应。尽管这些反应的程度仅为中等，但这些数据进一步表明，使用碳水化合物表位的肽模拟物作为免疫原是可行的，这一特性可能有助于设计新型抗布鲁氏菌疫苗。
