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Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants

The Nucleocapsid (N) protein is highlighted as the main target for COVID-19 diagnosis by antigen detection due to its abundance in circulation early during infection. However, the effects of the described mutations in the N protein epitopes and the efficacy of antigen testing across SARS-CoV-2 varia...

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Autores principales: Rodrigues-da-Silva, Rodrigo N., Conte, Fernando P., da Silva, Gustavo, Carneiro-Alencar, Ana L., Gomes, Paula R., Kuriyama, Sergio N., Neto, Antonio A. F., Lima-Junior, Josué C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10145278/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37112903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v15040923
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author Rodrigues-da-Silva, Rodrigo N.
Conte, Fernando P.
da Silva, Gustavo
Carneiro-Alencar, Ana L.
Gomes, Paula R.
Kuriyama, Sergio N.
Neto, Antonio A. F.
Lima-Junior, Josué C.
author_facet Rodrigues-da-Silva, Rodrigo N.
Conte, Fernando P.
da Silva, Gustavo
Carneiro-Alencar, Ana L.
Gomes, Paula R.
Kuriyama, Sergio N.
Neto, Antonio A. F.
Lima-Junior, Josué C.
author_sort Rodrigues-da-Silva, Rodrigo N.
collection PubMed
description The Nucleocapsid (N) protein is highlighted as the main target for COVID-19 diagnosis by antigen detection due to its abundance in circulation early during infection. However, the effects of the described mutations in the N protein epitopes and the efficacy of antigen testing across SARS-CoV-2 variants remain controversial and poorly understood. Here, we used immunoinformatics to identify five epitopes in the SARS-CoV-2 N protein (N((34–48)), N((89–104)), N((185–197)), N((277–287)), and N((378–390))) and validate their reactivity against samples from COVID-19 convalescent patients. All identified epitopes are fully conserved in the main SARS-CoV-2 variants and highly conserved with SARS-CoV. Moreover, the epitopes N((185–197)) and N((277–287)) are highly conserved with MERS-CoV, while the epitopes N((34–48)), N((89–104)), N((277–287)), and N((378–390)) are lowly conserved with common cold coronaviruses (229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1). These data are in accordance with the observed conservation of amino acids recognized by the antibodies 7R98, 7N0R, and 7CR5, which are conserved in the SARS-CoV-2 variants, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV but lowly conserved in common cold coronaviruses. Therefore, we support the antigen tests as a scalable solution for the population-level diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, but we highlight the need to verify the cross-reactivity of these tests against the common cold coronaviruses.
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spelling pubmed-101452782023-04-29 Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants Rodrigues-da-Silva, Rodrigo N. Conte, Fernando P. da Silva, Gustavo Carneiro-Alencar, Ana L. Gomes, Paula R. Kuriyama, Sergio N. Neto, Antonio A. F. Lima-Junior, Josué C. Viruses Article The Nucleocapsid (N) protein is highlighted as the main target for COVID-19 diagnosis by antigen detection due to its abundance in circulation early during infection. However, the effects of the described mutations in the N protein epitopes and the efficacy of antigen testing across SARS-CoV-2 variants remain controversial and poorly understood. Here, we used immunoinformatics to identify five epitopes in the SARS-CoV-2 N protein (N((34–48)), N((89–104)), N((185–197)), N((277–287)), and N((378–390))) and validate their reactivity against samples from COVID-19 convalescent patients. All identified epitopes are fully conserved in the main SARS-CoV-2 variants and highly conserved with SARS-CoV. Moreover, the epitopes N((185–197)) and N((277–287)) are highly conserved with MERS-CoV, while the epitopes N((34–48)), N((89–104)), N((277–287)), and N((378–390)) are lowly conserved with common cold coronaviruses (229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1). These data are in accordance with the observed conservation of amino acids recognized by the antibodies 7R98, 7N0R, and 7CR5, which are conserved in the SARS-CoV-2 variants, SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV but lowly conserved in common cold coronaviruses. Therefore, we support the antigen tests as a scalable solution for the population-level diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, but we highlight the need to verify the cross-reactivity of these tests against the common cold coronaviruses. MDPI 2023-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10145278/ /pubmed/37112903 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v15040923 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Rodrigues-da-Silva, Rodrigo N.
Conte, Fernando P.
da Silva, Gustavo
Carneiro-Alencar, Ana L.
Gomes, Paula R.
Kuriyama, Sergio N.
Neto, Antonio A. F.
Lima-Junior, Josué C.
Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
title Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
title_full Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
title_fullStr Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
title_full_unstemmed Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
title_short Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
title_sort identification of b-cell linear epitopes in the nucleocapsid (n) protein b-cell linear epitopes conserved among the main sars-cov-2 variants
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10145278/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37112903
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v15040923
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