Use of a chimeric synthetic peptide from the core p19 protein and the envelope gp46 glycoprotein in the immunodiagnosis of HTLV-II virus infection.

A chimeric synthetic peptide incorporating immunodominant epitope of the p19 gag protein (116-134) and the gp46 env protein (178-200) of HTLV-II virus, separated by two glycine residues, was synthesized by conventional solid-phase peptide synthesis. The antigenic activity of this peptide was evaluated by Ultramicro Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (UMELISA) by using panels of anti-HTLV-II positive sera (n = 9), anti-HTLV-I/II positive sera (n = 2), HTLV-positive (untypeable) serum samples (n = 1),and anti-HTLV-I positive sera (n = 14), while specificity was evaluated with samples from healthy blood donors (n = 20). The efficacy of the chimeric peptide in solid-phase immunoassays was compared with the monomeric peptides. Data demonstrated that the chimeric peptide was the most reactive because it detected antibodies to virus efficiently. This may be related to peptide adsorption to the solid surface and epitope accessibility to the antibodies. The results indicate that chimeric peptide as coating antigen is very useful for the immunodiagnosis of HTLV-II infection.