Improved reactivity of hepatitis C virus core protein epitopes in a conformational antigen-presenting system.

Recent studies have identified several epitopes in the N-terminal portion of the nucleocapsid protein which are predominantly recognized by sera of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). The characterization of the sequences recognized by theses antibodies and the evaluation of their reactivities have been performed mainly with synthetic peptides. However, synthetic peptides are notoriously unreliable as antigens when the immune response is directed against conformational epitopes. In order to improve the detection of antibody responses in HCV-infected patients, we have evaluated the reactivities of three immunodominant regions of the HCV core protein (residues 1 to 20, 21 to 40, and 32 to 46) displayed in a conformation-specific manner on the surface of the Flock House virus (FHV) capsid protein. The results obtained with these proteins in the analysis of 94 serum samples positive by anti-HCV enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay where then compared with those obtained with the corresponding synthetic peptides. The sequence most reactive both with the peptide and with the FHV protein was the region from residues 1 to 20, confirming the low conformational requirements for the display of these residues. On the other hand, the already reported conformational nature of residues 32 to 46 is in keeping with its observed high reactivity when displayed by the FHV recombinant protein and with the low reactivity displayed by its corresponding synthetic peptide. Finally, the high reactivity observed for the chimeric protein displaying the region from residues 21 to 40, as opposed to the results obtained with the synthetic peptide, also suggests that this sequence contains one or more conformational epitopes whose structures cannot be mimicked correctly with synthetic peptides.