MAPPING ANTIGENIC EPITOPES OF POTATO VIRUS-Y WITH ANTIBODIES AFFINITY-PURIFIED BY USING OVERLAPPING SYNTHETIC PEPTIDES

Synthetic, overlapping peptides representing the entire amino acid seq uence of potato virus Y (PVY) coat protein were used to affinity-purif y antibodies from polyclonal antisera to PVY. In testing the binding o f the purified antibodies to PVY particles, antigenic epitopes were id entified. The N-terminal and C-terminal regions of the PVY coat protei n were found to contain most of the antigenic epitopes. The results wi ll facilitate the development of detection methods for PVY based on sy nthetic peptides.