SYNTHESIS AND ANTIGENIC ACTIVITY OF PEPTI DES FROM THE ORF3 PROTEIN-SEQUENCE OF HEPATITIS-E VIRUS

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an infection agent (detected recently) responsible for an enterically transmitted non-A, non-B hepatitis [1,2 ]. Hepatitis E is a big problem in many developing countries, includin g the Central Asian areas of the former Soviet Union [2]. By cloning f ollowed by sequence analysis of the HEV genome, three open reading fra mes (ORF) have been identified, among them ORF3 encoding a protein con taining 123 amino acid residues, the function Pf this protein being un known, Recently [3], one of the immunodominant regions of ORF3 protein was revealed between the 91st and 123rd amino acid residue,The purpos e of the present study was a more precise localization of epitopes in the C-terminal portion of HEV ORF3 protein by using synthetic peptides .