ANTIGENICITY OF VP60 STRUCTURAL PROTEIN OF RABBIT HEMORRHAGIC-DISEASEVIRUS

Five overlapping segments of the VP60 capsid protein gene of rabbit ha emorrhagic disease virus have been expressed in E. coli under the cont rol of the T7 RNA polymerase. After purification, the antigenicity of these denatured protein segments has been studied by reactivity with s era from both naturally infected and vaccinated animals in Western blo t analysis. The amino terminus segments of the protein (comprising the first 175 amino acids) are highly reactive with the tested sera, betw een 10 and 100 fold more than any of the segments reproducing the carb oxy half of VP60, which is believed to be solvent-exposed in the virus particles. These results strongly suggest that the antigenic structur e of the carboxy moiety of VP60 is mainly based on conformation-depend ent B-cell epitopes whereas the amino terminal region of VP60 contains continuous antigenic determinants for the immune response elicited du ring both virus infection and exposure to the inactivated vaccine.