D. Barchan et al., IDENTIFICATION OF EPITOPES WITHIN A HIGHLY IMMUNOGENIC REGION OF ACETYLCHOLINE-RECEPTOR BY A PHAGE EPITOPE LIBRARY, The Journal of immunology, 155(9), 1995, pp. 4264-4269
We have employed a hexapeptide phage-epitope library to identify epito
pes for a mAb (mAb 5.14), which is directed to a determinant within a
highly immunogenic, cytoplasmic region of the alpha-subunit of acetylc
holine receptor (AChR). We have selected two different peptide-present
ing phages (SWDDIR-phage and LWILTR-phage) which interact specifically
with mAb 5.14. This interaction is specifically inhibited by AChR and
by synthetic peptides corresponding to the hexapeptides presented by
the selected phages. Although mAb 5.14 binds to AChR in its native as
well as its denatured form, the selected hexapeptides do not exist as
such in the AChR molecule. However, three amino acid sequence homologi
es with these hexapeptides were shown to be present in the cytoplasmic
region of Torpedo AChR. By extending the selected hexapeptides, at on
e or both ends, with amino acid residues flanking the hexapeptides in
the phage, we obtained mimotopes with an up to two order of magnitude
higher affinity to the Ab. These extended peptides were able to effici
ently block the binding of mAb 5.14 to both peptide-presenting phages,
and to AChR.