Mapping of linear antigenic sites on the S glycoprotein of a neurotropic murine coronavirus with synthetic peptides: a combination of nine prediction algorithms fails to identify relevant epitopes and peptide immunogenicity is drastically influenced by the nature of the protein carrier.

The elucidation of the antigenic structure of the S glycoprotein of murine coronaviruses will provide further understanding of the complex pathogenicity of these viruses. In order to identify linear antigenic determinants, the primary structure of the S glycoprotein of murine hepatitis virus strain A59 was analyzed with a combination of nine epitope prediction algorithms. Fifteen potential epitopes were synthesized chemically and injected into BALB/c mice to study their biological relevance. This approach failed to identify novel important epitopes. Furthermore, the algorithms were unable to identify as antigenic the previously mapped immunodominant epitope A [C. Daniel, R. Anderson, M. J. Buchmeier, J. O. Fleming, W. J. M. Spaan, H. Wege, and Talbot, P. J. (1993). J. Virol. 67, 1185-1194]. Interestingly, peptide A coupled to KLH induced an immune response that simulated the immune response induced by the corresponding region of the protein much more accurately than when the same peptide was coupled to BSA. This included drastically enhanced competition with monoclonal antibodies and protection from virus challenge. These findings emphasize the shortcomings of amino acid sequence-based epitope prediction algorithms and demonstrate the critical importance of the carrier when synthetic peptides are considered as potential vaccines.