(03417) Schistosoma japonicum: Isolation and Identification of Peptides Mimicking Ferritin Epitopes from Phage Display Library

Lian-Fei TANG, Xin-Yuan
YI*, Xian-Fang ZENG, Lin-Qian WANG, and Shun-Ke ZHANG
(Department of Parasitology, Central South University Xiangya School of Medicine,
Changsha 410078, China)

Abstract In an attempt to
isolate and identify the antigenic epitopes on ferritin of Schistosoma japonicum
(SjFer) and to test their protective potentiality against Schistosoma
japonicum (S.j), polyclonal antisera against SjFer was prepared
to screen a 12-mer random peptide library. Three rounds of biopanning were performed
and resulted in an enrichment. Six peptides selected randomly from the third
elute were all found to be positive by evaluating the binding to anti-SjFer
sera by ELISA and Western blotting. Three amino acid sequences were deduced
from the six phage clones by sequencing. When they were used to vaccinate mice,
the three peptides could induce significant reduction in adult worms (26.7%,
20.4%, and 25.9%) as well as in liver eggs per gram (LEPG) (40.0%, 38.2%, and
40.8%). This result showed that three mimotopes on SjFer were obtained
and they could induce significant protective efficacy against S.j.

Key words phage displayed
peptide library; epitope; Schistosoma japonicum; ferritin

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Received: October 28, 2003 Accepted:
December 29, 2003
This work was supported by the grant from WHO/TDR (980268)
*Corresponding author: Tel, 86-731-4498311; E-mail,
[email protected]