Browsing by Author "Bremner, William T. R."

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    Epitope Mapping of Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus Antigens E1, E2, Erns, and NS3 using Phage Display and Peptide Scanning
    (2020-12-21) Bremner, William T. R.; van der Meer, Frank; Schryvers, Anthony Bernard; Coffin, Carla S.; van Marle, Guido
    Bovine viral diarrhea virus is a cattle pathogen with global distribution, and substantial economic impact. Control of viral transmission is challenging by the lifelong viral shedding by persistently infected (PI) animals, and the significant diversity of the virus. While surveillance and removal of PI animals is the primary focus of control programs, insight into the antigenicity of the virus could be valuable for developing broadly protective vaccines to reduce the spread of the virus within farms and in this way the incidence of persistently infected animals (PI’s). This study aims to characterise the viral proteins of BVDV which elicit specific antibody responses. These proteins are the surface glycoproteins E1, E2 and Erns, as well as the non-structural protein NS3. This work employs the techniques of phage display, and peptide scanning to identify epitope structures on these four antigens and puts them into the context of existing structural models. Linear epitopes of potential interest for future vaccine development were identified on each of the four antigens. While attempts at characterizing conformational epitopes highlighted shortcomings in the computational workflow for such efforts, valuable insight into the limitations and future directions are drawn.