Dengue and Zika virus multi-epitope antigen expression in insect cells
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Dengue and Zika virus multi‑epitope antigen expression in insect cells Leonardo Lopes‑Luz1 · Isabela Cinquini Junqueira2 · Lucimeire Antonelli da Silveira1 · Bruna Ribeiro de Melo Pereira3 · Leonardo Assis da Silva3 · Bergmann Morais Ribeiro3 · Tatsuya Nagata3 Received: 25 April 2020 / Accepted: 28 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Dengue virus and Zika virus are arthropod-borne flaviviruses that cause millions of infections worldwide. The co-circulation of both viruses makes serological diagnosis difficult as they share high amino acid similarities in viral proteins. Antigens are one of the key reagents in the differential diagnosis of these viruses through the detection of IgG antibodies in serological assays during the convalescent-phase of infections. Here, we report the expression of Dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV) antigens containing non-conserved and immunodominant amino acid sequences using the baculovirus expression vector system in insect cells. We designed DENV and ZIKV antigens based on the domain III of the E protein (EDIII) after analyzing previously reported epitopes and by multiple alignment of the most important flaviviruses. The ZIKV and DENV multi-epitope genes were designed as tandem repeats or impaired repeats separated by tetra- or hexa-glycine linkers. The biochemical analyses revealed adequate expression of the antigens. Then, the obtained multi-epitope antigens were semipurified in a sucrose gradient and tested using patients’ sera collected during the convalescent-phase that were previously diagnosed positive for anti-DENV and -ZIKV IgG antibodies. The optimal serum dilution was 1:200, and the mean absorbance values in the preliminary tests show that multi-epitope antigens have been recognized by human sera. The production of both antigens using the multi-epitope strategy in the eukaryotic system and based on the EDIII regions provide a proof of concept for the use of antigens in the differentiation between DENV and ZIKV. Keywords Dengue virus · Zika virus · Multi-epitope · Antigens · Insect cells
Introduction Dengue virus and Zika virus are arthropod-borne viruses in the genus Flavivirus of the family Flaviviridae. Viruses in this genus possess single-stranded and positive-sense RNA genomes with ~ 11 kb in length [1]. The genomes of Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-020-05772-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Tatsuya Nagata [email protected] 1
Campus Colemar Natal E Silva, Instituto de Patologia Tropical E Saúde Pública, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, GO 74605‑450, Brazil
2
Faculdade de Farmácia, Campus Colemar Natal E Silva, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, GO 74605‑170, Brazil
3
Departamento de Biologia Celular, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF 70910‑900, Brazil
Dengue virus (DENV) isolates are more diverse than those of Zika virus (ZIKV) isolates, and currently, there are
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