Selection of mimotopes of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus using a solid-phase peptide library.

Bovine Viral Diarrhoea Virus (BVDV) is an important pathogen of cattle, causing important economical losses world-wide. In this study, an 8-mer solid-phase peptide library was screened with a neutralising monoclonal antibody 157 to generate mimotopes mimicking a conformational neutralising epitope of BVDV E2 protein. Two sequences selected 157A1 LFEQYYYF and 157A2 LYRFGEFD that did not show a high structural or sequence similarity with BVDV E2 glycoprotein reacted specifically with monoclonal antibody 157 when presented as solid-phase peptides in a SPOT scan assay. These results indicate that combinatorial peptide libraries can be used to identify potential mimotopes of conformational epitopes.