Identification of B-Cell Epitopes with Potential to Serologicaly Discrimnate Dengue from Zika Infections

Abstract

Dengue is currently one of the most important arbovirus infections worldwide. Early diagnosis is important for disease outcome, particularly for those afflicted with the severe forms of infection. The goal of this work was to identify conserved and polymorphic linear B-cell Dengue virus (DENV) epitopes that could be used for diagnostic purposes. To this end, we aligned the predicted viral proteome of the four DENV serotype and performed in silico B-cell epitope mapping. We developed a script in Perl integrating alignment and prediction information to identify potential serotype-specific epitopes. We excluded epitopes that were similarly present in the yellow fever and zika viruses’ proteomes. A total of 15 polymorphic and nine conserved peptides among DENV serotypes were selected. Peptides were spotted on cellulose membranes and tested against sera from rabbits that were monoinfected with each DENV serotype. Although serotype-specific peptides failed to recognize any sera, three conserved peptides were recognized by all anti-dengue sera and were included on an ELISA test employing a well-characterized human sera bank. Of the three peptides, one was able to efficiently identify sera from all four DENV serotypes and to discriminate them from Zika virus positive sera.

Special Issue “Emerging Viruses: Surveillance, Prevention, Evolution, and Control”

“…Pérez-Olmeda [17] evaluates the performance characteristics of the LIAISON XL Zika Capture IgM II. Versiane et al [18] describe the identification of B-cell epitopes with potential use to discriminate dengue from zika infections in serological assays.…”

Peptide Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Dengue Infection

“…In this regard, extensive analysis has been performed on the characterization of immunodominant epitopes present in the flavivirus structural proteins Capsid, prM and Envelope and the non-structural protein NS1, which are main targets of the humoral immune response (19). Important epitopes present in the other non-structural proteins have also been described to be targeted by Abs (22,34) and they represent potential Ags to be used in immunoassays. The peptides evaluated in this work span the entire DENV proteome and they were based on their ability to be recognized by Abs present in the serum from DENV infected individuals (22).…”

A Promising Tool in Serological Diagnosis: Current Research Progress of Antigenic Epitopes in Infectious Diseases

“…Furthermore, in order to quickly diagnose all dengue virus serotypes and avoid cross-reactions between the crude DENV extracts and other flaviviruses, a tetra-epitope peptide that selected one to four serotypes from E protein within the DENV was expressed by a plant expression system, with a sensitivity of 71.7% and specificity of 100% [ 106 ]. Moreover, another important result observed was the capturing of a conserved peptide that has the latent capacity to recognize all four DENV serotypes and distinguish them from Zika virus-positive serotype [ 114 ]. Thus, it is clear that the epitope has extraordinary prospects in the diagnosis of DENV.…”