Article
Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants
Registro en:
SILVA, Rodrigo N. Rodrigues da et al Identification of B-Cell Linear Epitopes in the Nucleocapsid (N) Protein B-Cell Linear Epitopes Conserved among the Main SARS-CoV-2 Variants. Viruses, v. 15, 923, p. 1 - 16, Apr. 2023.
1999-4915
10.3390/v15040923
Autor
Silva, Rodrigo N. Rodrigues da
Conte, Fernando P.
Silva, Gustavo da
Alencar, Ana L. Carneiro
Gomes, Paula R.
Kuriyama, Sergio N.
Neto, Antonio A. F.
Lima Jumior, Josué C. Lima
Resumen
Abstract: The Nucleocapsid (N) protein is highlighted as the main target for COVID-19 diagnosis by
antigen detection due to its abundance in circulation early during infection. However, the effects of the
described mutations in the N protein epitopes and the efficacy of antigen testing across SARS-CoV-2
variants remain controversial and poorly understood. Here, we used immunoinformatics to identify
five epitopes in the SARS-CoV-2 N protein (N(34–48), N(89–104), N(185–197), N(277–287), and N(378–390)) and
validate their reactivity against samples from COVID-19 convalescent patients. All identified epitopes
are fully conserved in the main SARS-CoV-2 variants and highly conserved with SARS-CoV.Moreover,
the epitopes N(185–197) and N(277–287) are highly conserved withMERS-CoV, while the epitopes N(34–48),
N(89–104), N(277–287), and N(378–390) are lowly conserved with common cold coronaviruses (229E, NL63,
OC43, HKU1). These data are in accordance with the observed conservation of amino acids recognized
by the antibodies 7R98, 7N0R, and 7CR5, which are conserved in the SARS-CoV-2 variants, SARS-CoV
andMERS-CoV but lowly conserved in common cold coronaviruses. Therefore, we support the antigen
tests as a scalable solution for the population-level diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, but we highlight the need
to verify the cross-reactivity of these tests against the common cold coronaviruses.