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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #67001
Title: RECOGNITION OF OVINE LENTIVIRUS GAG GENE PRODUCTS BY SERUM FROM INFECTED SHEEP

Author
item Kwang, Hwei Sing
item ROSATI, SERGIO - UNIV TURIN, TORINO, ITALY
item Yang, Xiao
item JUSTE, RAMON - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
item DELACONCHABERMEJI, ANDRES - TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

Submitted to: Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/20/1996
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Ovine lentivirus (OLV) is the causative agent of ovine progressive pneumonia in sheep. Its genome contains the gag, pol, and env structural and regulatory genes. We used a genetic approach to predict the region in the OLV gag protein most likely to elicit an immune response in OLV-infected sheep. The region identified in this study is consistently recognized by serum antibodies from OLV-infected U.S. and Italian sheep, regardless of the OLV strain used for inoculation. Given this broad reactivity, this region could serve as an ideal diagnostic antigen for the serological diagnosis of OLV-infected sheep.

Technical Abstract: In order to localize the immunodominant regions, 12 ovine lentivirus (OLV) gag-coding gene fragments were cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli and then tested in a Western blot (WB) assay against a panel of sera collected from U.S. and Italian OLV-infected sheep. The most immunoreactive regions were mapped to the amino-terminal of p25 and carboxyl-terminal of p14. In addition, we found that the reactivity pattern between U.S. and Italian sheep was very similar, suggesting the antigenic domain between U.S. and Italian isolates in the gag gene structures could be conserved. Given the broad immunoreactivity of the amino-terminal of p25, this region could serve as an ideal diagnostic antigen for the serological identification of OLV-infected sheep.