Department of Central Laboratory, Affiliated Wuxi People's Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Wuxi, PR China.
Intervirology. 2011 Feb;54(2):53-60. doi: 10.1159/000316312. Epub 2010 Sep 10.
To investigate the effect of sequence variability between different genotypes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) on the antigenic properties of the NS3 proteins, and to evaluate the significance of the proteins in the serological diagnosis.
The recombinant expression plasmids of pET/NS3-1 and pET/NS3-6 were constructed with the NS3 region fragments from HCV genotypes 1 and 6, respectively. The antigenic reactivity of the recombinant NS3 proteins was determined. The NS3 nucleotide sequences were aligned with 6 HCV full-length strains representing different genotypes.
The two recombinant NS3 proteins were generated and enzyme immunoassay tests were developed. The positive rates of anti-NS3 were 61.2 and 58.8% by using the NS3 antigens from HCV genotypes 1 and 6, respectively. This difference had no statistical significance (p > 0.05). However, it was interesting that 16 samples gave a discordant result for different genotype NS3 antigens.The two partial NS3 sequences shared approximately 63.9-79.9% identity with the different genotype strains.
The primary structure of the HCV NS3 region is highly variable. Thus, sequence variability has a profound effect on the antigenic properties of the NS3 regions, and the antigenic differences should be taken into account for the development of more effective diagnostic tests.
研究丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）不同基因型之间序列变异对 NS3 蛋白抗原性的影响，并评估这些蛋白在血清学诊断中的意义。
分别用 HCV 基因型 1 和 6 的 NS3 区片段构建了 pET/NS3-1 和 pET/NS3-6 重组表达质粒。测定了重组 NS3 蛋白的抗原反应性。对代表不同基因型的 6 株 HCV 全长株的 NS3 核苷酸序列进行了比对。
生成了两种重组 NS3 蛋白，并开发了酶免疫测定法。用 HCV 基因型 1 和 6 的 NS3 抗原检测，抗-NS3 的阳性率分别为 61.2%和 58.8%，差异无统计学意义（p＞0.05）。但有趣的是，有 16 个样本对不同基因型 NS3 抗原的检测结果不一致。两段部分 NS3 序列与不同基因型株的同源性约为 63.9-79.9%。
HCV NS3 区的一级结构高度可变。因此，序列变异对 NS3 区的抗原性有深远影响，在开发更有效的诊断检测时应考虑抗原差异。
