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. 2013 Apr 11;28(2):92–96. doi: 10.1007/s12250-013-3292-y

Identification of immunogenic determinants of the spike protein of SARS-like coronavirus

Peng Zhou 13292,23292, Zhenggang Han 13292, Lin-Fa Wang 23292,33292, Zhengli Shi 13292,✉
PMCID: PMC7090416  PMID: 23575730

Abstract

Bat SARS-like coronavirus (SL-CoV) has a genome organization almost identical to that of SARS-CoV, but the N-terminus of the Spike (S) proteins, which interacts with host receptor and is a major target of neutralizing antibodies against CoVs, of the two viruses has only 63–64% sequence identity. Although there have been reports studying the overall immunogenicity of SSL, knowledge on the precise location of immunodominant determinants for SSL is still lacking. In this study, using a series of truncated expressed SSL fragments and SSL specific mouse sera, we identified two immunogenic determinants for SSL. Importantly, one of the two regions seems to be located in a region not shared by known immunogenic determinants of the SSARS. This finding will be of potential use in future monitoring of SL-CoV infection in bats and spillover animals and in development of more effective vaccine to cover broad protection against this new group of coronaviruses.

Keywords: Bat, SL-CoV, Immune, Vaccine

Footnotes

Foundation items: This work was jointly funded by the State Key Program for Basic Research Grant (2010CB530100, 2011CB504700) and special project for infectious diseases (2009ZX10004-109) from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.

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Articles from Virologica Sinica are provided here courtesy of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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