Synthetic peptides containing B- and T-cell epitope of dengue virus-2 E domain III provoked B- and T-cell responses

Our previous work applied a combination of bioinformatics approaches and in vitro assays to identify the dengue-2 virus (DENV-2)-specific B- and T-cell epitopes. In this report, we first evaluated the antigenicity of both B- and T-cell epitopes reacting with different sera against DENV-2 by ELISA as well as the ability of T-cell epitope to activate CD4(+) T-cell producing IFN-γ using ELISPOT, which showed a specific reactivity between either B- or T-cell epitope and DENV-2 antisera, and a significant increase of IFN-γ producing cells in DENV-2 infected mice. Then, a multi-epitope peptide containing the above B-, T-cell epitopes of envelope domain III (EDIII) of DENV-2 and pan-DR epitope (PADRE) was bioinformatically designed and synthesized. The verification of its immunogenicity and protective effect was performed in in vitro and in vivo experiments. The results showed that a high level of antibody in mice elicited by the multi-epitope peptide was detected by ELISA and the anti-peptide sera binding to the vero cells infected with DEN-2 was observed with immunofluorescence test. More importantly, the peptide could induce lymphoproliferation in vitro and a predominant Th1 type of immune response was examined by flow cytometry. We also found that the virus replication in the mice vaccinated with the multi-epitope peptide was obviously less than that of the control groups. These results may provide some important information for the development of dengue vaccine.