Antigenic Mixture of Synthetic Peptides for the Immunodiagnosis of HTLV I/II Infection

Abstract

Monomeric and chimeric synthetic peptides were used as coating antigens in four different mixtures in a solid phase immunoassay to select an optimal combination for the detection of antibodies to human T‐cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV) in serum samples. The peptides, P‐13 (gp21 I), Q5 (gp21 II)‐GG‐(gp46 II), and Q (gp46 I)‐GG‐(p19 I), represent immunodominant sequences from transmembrane protein (gp21), envelope protein (gp46), and core protein (p19) of HTLV I/II viruses; they were the most antigenic and specific peptides in previous studies. The sequences of the chimeric peptides were separated by two glycine residues. An indirect UltramicroEnzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (UMELISA) was used to evaluate the antigenicity of these peptide mixtures by using samples from anti‐HTLV I/II PRP205(M), (n = 20), HTLV I‐infected individuals from Cuba (n = 7), and HTLV I‐positive sera from Colombia and Chile (n = 9). The specificity was evaluated with healthy blood donor sera (n = 300), anti‐HIV 1‐positive samples (n = 10), and other seropositive samples to different infectious agents. The highest sensitivity and specificity was obtained with mixture 1, which could be very useful in the immunodiagnostic of HTLV infection.

Keywords:

• Synthetic peptides
• UMELISA
• p19
• gp46
• gp21
• HTLV I/II

Acknowledgments

We thank Maria Teresa Pérez Guevara, Eladio Silva Cabrera, Otto Cruz Sui, and Héctor M. Díaz Torres from the National Reference Center for Retroviruses (Havana, Cuba), for supplying us the HTLV I‐seropositive samples to evaluate the peptides mixtures on the assays.