Can Mutational GC-Pressure Create New Linear B-cell Epitopes in Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Glycoprotein B?

Abstract

We showed that GC-content of nucleotide sequences coding for linear B-cell epitopes of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1) glycoprotein B (gB) is higher than GC-content of sequences coding for epitope-free regions of this glycoprotein (G + C = 73 and 64%, respectively). Linear B-cell epitopes have been predicted in HSV1 gB by BepiPred algorithm (www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/BepiPred). Proline is an acrophilic amino acid residue (it is usually situated on the surface of protein globules, and so included in linear B-cell epitopes). Indeed, the level of proline is much higher in predicted epitopes of gB than in epitope-free regions (17.8% versus 1.8%). This amino acid is coded by GC-rich codons (CCX) that can be produced due to nucleotide substitutions caused by mutational GC-pressure. GC-pressure will also lead to disappearance of acrophobic phenylalanine, isoleucine, methionine and tyrosine coded by GC-poor codons. Results of our “in-silico directed mutagenesis” showed that single nonsynonymous substitutions in AT to GC direction in two long epitope-free regions of gB will cause formation of new linear epitopes or elongation of previously existing epitopes flanking these regions in 25% of 539 possible cases. The calculations of GC-content and amino acid content have been performed by CodonChanges algorithm (www.barkovsky.hotmail.ru).

Keywords:

• HSV1
• Glycoprotein B
• Linear B-cell epitopes
• GC-content
• Mutational pressure
• Acrophilicity
• Acrophobicity