Study on the epitopes of four monoclonal antibodies specific to ebola virus nucleoprotein

Objective To analysis the epitope of Ebola virus (EBOV) nucleoprotein (NP) and understand its immunological properties. Methods Firstly four mouse mAbs recognizing the different epitopes of Ebola virus NP were classified by competition ELISA. The full-length NP and the C-terminal were truncated and expressed in E. coli. according to epitope prediction by software and some published papers. Epitope mapping of mAbs to a panel of the truncated rNP were identified in WB analysis. Results After epitope prediction, the full-length NP were divided into rNP1-418, rNP419-639 and rNP640-739. WB analysis indicated that mAbs all recognized the linear epitopes, which were limited in the C-terminal 100aa (rNP640-739). The truncated N proteins with N-terminal of rNP640-739 series 20aa deletions reacted with all mAbs. The epitopes recognized by anti-NP mAbs were defined near the C-terminal 20aa of EBOV NP. Conclusion Analysis of antigenic epitopes of EBOV NP by specific mAbs as a probe lay the foundation for the study of immunology diagnostic reagents. Key words: Ebola virus; Nucleoprotein (NP); Epitope