Laboratory of Hantaviroses and Rickettsioses, Oswaldo Cruz Institute, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro 21040-900, Brazil.
Laboratory of Monoclonal Antibodies Technology, Immunobiological Technology Institute, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro 21040-360, Brazil.
Viruses. 2021 Jun 22;13(7):1188. doi: 10.3390/v13071188.
Bats are hosts of a range of viruses, and their great diversity and unique characteristics that distinguish them from all other mammals have been related to the maintenance, evolution, and dissemination of these pathogens. Recently, very divergent hantaviruses have been discovered in distinct species of bats worldwide, but their association with human disease remains unclear. Considering the low success rates of detecting hantavirus RNA in bat tissues and that to date no hantaviruses have been isolated from bat samples, immunodiagnostic tools could be very helpful to understand pathogenesis, epidemiology, and geographic range of bat-borne hantaviruses. In this sense, we aimed to identify in silico immunogenic B-cell epitopes present on bat-borne hantaviruses nucleoprotein (NP) and verify if they are conserved among them and other selected members of , using a combination of (the three most used) different prediction algorithms, ELLIPRO, Discotope 2.0, and PEPITO server. To support our data, we in silico modeled 3D structures of NPs from representative members of bat-borne hantaviruses, using comparative and ab initio methods due to the absence of crystallographic structures of studied proteins or similar models in the Protein Data Bank. Our analysis demonstrated the antigenic complexity of the bat-borne hantaviruses group, showing a low sequence conservation of epitopes among members of its own group and a minor conservation degree in comparison to , with a recognized importance to public health. Our data suggest that the use of recombinant rodent-borne hantavirus NPs to cross-detect antibodies against bat- or shrew-borne viruses could underestimate the real impact of this virus in nature.
蝙蝠是多种病毒的宿主,它们与所有其他哺乳动物在多样性和独特性方面的显著差异,与这些病原体的维持、进化和传播有关。最近,在世界各地不同种类的蝙蝠中发现了非常不同的汉坦病毒,但它们与人类疾病的关联尚不清楚。考虑到在蝙蝠组织中检测汉坦病毒 RNA 的成功率较低,而且迄今为止尚未从蝙蝠样本中分离出汉坦病毒,免疫诊断工具可能非常有助于了解蝙蝠携带的汉坦病毒的发病机制、流行病学和地理范围。在这种情况下,我们旨在鉴定蝙蝠携带的汉坦病毒核蛋白(NP)上存在的基于计算机的免疫原性 B 细胞表位,并使用组合的(三种最常用的)不同预测算法 ELLIPRO、Discotope 2.0 和 PEPITO 服务器,验证它们在蝙蝠携带的汉坦病毒之间以及其他选定成员之间是否保守。为了支持我们的数据,我们使用比较和从头计算方法对蝙蝠携带的汉坦病毒的代表成员的 NP 进行了 3D 结构建模,由于研究蛋白或类似模型在蛋白质数据银行中不存在结晶结构。我们的分析表明,蝙蝠携带的汉坦病毒组具有抗原复杂性,其成员之间的表位序列保守性低,与其他成员相比保守程度更低,对公共卫生具有重要意义。我们的数据表明,使用重组啮齿动物携带的汉坦病毒 NP 来交叉检测针对蝙蝠或鼩鼱携带的病毒的抗体,可能会低估这种病毒在自然界中的实际影响。