Human anti-La/SS-B autoantibodies are known to react with highly conserved epitopes suggested to be functional or active sites on the La/SS-B polypeptide. This study was designed to determine whether the autoantibodies also react with poorly conserved regions of La/SS-B as predicted by an antigen-driven autoimmune response. Binding of human autoantibodies to purified human, mouse, and bovine re...

The B-lymphocyte-immunodominant antigen involved in naturally ovine progressive pneumonia virus (OPPV)-infected mature sheep remains unknown. Therefore, the amount of antibody in sera from 10 naturally OPPV-infected sheep was evaluated by immunoprecipitation (IP) of the major viral proteins in [(35)S]methionine/cysteine-labeled OPPV (whole virus) lysate. Using an excess of OPPV proteins in whol...

A newly identified hantavirus, tentatively called Four Corners virus (FCV), was found to be the aetiological agent of a 1993 outbreak of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in the southwestern United States. Immunodominant epitopes of 43 and 31 amino acids were identified in the nucleocapsid protein and G1 glycoprotein, respectively. The G1 genes of different hantaviruses are highly divergent, ...

The immune system focuses on and responds to very few representative immunodominant epitopes from pathogenic insults. However, due to the complexity of the antigen processing, understanding the parameters that lead to immunodominance has proved difficult. In an attempt to uncover the determinants of immunodominance among several dominant epitopes, we utilized a cell free antigen processing syst...

objective(s):typhoid fever is a dreadful disease of a major threat to public health in developing countries. vaccination with bacterial immunodominant components such as surface proteins may prove as a potent alternative to live attenuated vaccines. invh, an important part of needle complex in type three secretion system (ttss) plays important role in efficient bacterial adherence and entry int...

Rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV) causes an important disease in rabbits. The virus capsid is composed of a single 60 kDa protein. The capsid protein gene was cloned in Escherichia coli using the pET3 system, and the antigenic structure of RHDV VP60 was dissected using 11 monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and 12 overlapping fragments of the protein expressed in E. coli. Two antigenic regions ...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a serious autoimmune demyelinating disease leading to loss of neurological function. The design and synthesis of various altered peptide ligands of immunodominant epitopes of myelin proteins to alter the autoimmune response, is a promising therapeutic approach for MS. In this study, linear and cyclic peptide analogs based on the myelin basic protein 83-99 (MBP83-99) i...