Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (1): 307-318.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2025.01.028

• Preventive Veterinary Medicine • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Study on the Presentation Strategy and Immunogenicity of Porcine Parvovirus Epitope Inserted by 3-fold Axes Region on the Surface of Porcine Circovirus Type 2 Virus-like Particles

CAI Yunfeng1,2(), LI Hong1,2, HUANG Xiaoming1,2, HE Qing1,2, DING Zhenyu1,2, YU Wanting3, LUO Shile4, CHEN Fangzhi5, WANG Naidong1,2, YANG Yi1,2, ZHAN Yang1,2,*()   

  1. 1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha 410128, China
    2. Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Protein Engineering in Animal Vaccines, Changsha 410128, China
    3. College of Animal Science and Technology, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330045, China
    4. Hunan Panwise Biotechnology Co., LTD, Changsha 410205, China
    5. Animal Disease Prevention and Control Center of Ningxiang, Changsha 410600, China
  • Received:2024-02-19 Online:2025-01-23 Published:2025-01-18
  • Contact: ZHAN Yang E-mail:Yvonne_2019@stu.hunau.edu.cn;yangzhan@hunau.edu.cn

Abstract:

In order to study the potential of displaying foreign epitopes in the 3-fold axes region on the surface of PCV2 capsid, 3D structures of recombinant proteins after amino acid mutation are modeled, displayed and analyzed, combined with PCV2 capsid surface amino acid analysis. The constructed plasmids were expressed in E.coli (BL21), and the differences in soluble expression and purification difficulty of various mutant cap genes were analyzed, then the suitable region for displaying foreign epitope was determined. After the recombinant Cap protein inserted with PPV epitope was assembled in vitro, then the chimeric VLPs were immunized to mice, and the immunogenicity of chimeric VLPs was evaluated by antibody detection. The results showed that there were two amino acid regions (named Motif A and Motif B) suitable for displaying exogenous epitopes in 3-fold axes region on the surface of PCV2 capsid. Under the same expression conditions, mutant proteins related to Motif A region were mainly expressed in supernatant, and the target protein could be purified in one step, while most mutant proteins related to Motif B region were mainly in the form of precipitation. After PPV epitope was chimeric in Motif A region, and the purified recombinant protein could be assembled into cVLPs. IFA results demonstrated that cVLPs retained a similar capacity to enter PK15 cells as its wild type. The formed cVLPs could stimulate the mouse body to produce antibodies against the PCV2 VLPs, the B5-E1 epitope and PPV VP2 protein, respectively. The results showed that Motif A in the Loop GH region of PCV2 Cap protein, can display foreign epitopes on the outer surface of virus-like particles, and can be recognized by immune cells to produce specific antibodies.

Key words: porcine circovirus type 2, virus-like particles, 3-fold axes region, foreign epitope

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