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Journal of Virology, December 2004, p. 13285-13292, Vol. 78, No. 23
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.23.13285-13292.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Structural Requirements of Astrovirus Virus-Like Particles Assembled in Insect Cells

Santiago Caballero,1 Susana Guix,1 Enric Ribes,2 Albert Bosch,1* and Rosa M. Pintó1

Enteric Virus Group, Department of Microbiology,1 Department of Cell Biology, School of Biology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain2

Received 31 March 2004/ Accepted 23 July 2004

Expression of the complete ORF2 of human astrovirus serotype 1 (HAstV-1) in the baculovirus system led to the formation of virus-like particles (VLPs) of around 38 nm. The same kind of VLPs were also obtained either with the expression of a truncated form of ORF2 lacking the first 70 amino acids (aa), or with the same truncated form in which those 70 aa were replaced by the green fluorescent protein. All three kinds of VLPs were equally recognized by an anti-HAstV-1 polyclonal antibody and by two monoclonal antibodies (MAbs; 8E7 and 5B7), indicating a nonessential role of those amino acids neither in the capsid assembly nor in the antigen structure. A second type of structure consisting of 16-nm ring-like units was observed in all of the cases, mostly after disassembling the 38-nm VLPs through the addition of EDTA. The removal of the EDTA and the addition of Mg2+ ions promoted the reassembly of the 38-nm VLPs. The nature of these 16-nm ring-like structures, capsomers or T = 1 VLPs, still remains unclear. Biochemical analysis revealed no differences between the 38-nm VLPs and the 16-nm structures, whereas antigenically, they shared the 8E7 MAb epitope but differed in the 5B7 MAb epitope, with the latter structures being more readily recognized.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Microbiology, University of Barcelona, Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. Phone: 34 93 4034620. Fax: 34 93 4034629. E-mail: abosch{at}ub.edu.

Journal of Virology, December 2004, p. 13285-13292, Vol. 78, No. 23
0022-538X/04/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.78.23.13285-13292.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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