IMR Press / FBL / Volume 17 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.2741/4004

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Article
Immunogenic epitopes of Hantaviruses' N protein are restricted to conserved regions
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1 Nucleo de Bioinformatica do Laboratorio de Imunogenetica, Departamento de Genetica, Instituto de Biociencias, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Bento Goncalves, 9500 - Predio 43323, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2012, 17(4), 1582–1588; https://doi.org/10.2741/4004
Published: 1 January 2012
Abstract

The Bunyaviridae virus family is composed by five genera, of which the Hantavirus genus is one of the most important representatives. Occasionally, these viruses can be transmitted to humans, giving rise to severe diseases that present high mortality rates. We analyzed the amino acid sequences of the nucleocapsid (N) proteins of 34 different hantaviruses to investigate the potential mechanisms involved in immunogenicity against hantaviruses. Immunogenic epitopes described in the literature through experimental analyses for Sin Nombre (SNV), Puumala (PUUV), and Hantaan (HTNV) viruses' species were retrieved. We identified and characterized the regions believed to be responsible for the induction of immune response in hosts. We found that N protein epitopes described in the literature for PUUV, SNV and HTNV viruses are all located in highly conserved regions of the protein. The high conservation of these regions suggests that a cross-reactive immune response among different hantaviruses can be induced.

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