Screening of mimotope of Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharide from phage-displayed peptide]

OBJECTIVE: To identify and characterize the mimotope of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from cyclic 7-mer phage peptide library. METHODS: Cyclic 7-mer phage-displayed peptide library was screened using monoclonal antibody 2F4 (mAb 2F4) against Salmonella typhimurium LPS as the target, and the selected clones were tested by sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and specific antigen inhibition ELISA. RESULTS: After 3 round of screening, 34 of the 38 selected clones were identified as positive for binding to mAb 2F4. Salmonella typhimurium LPS was capable of inhibiting the binding between the cones and mAb 2F4, with the 50% inhibitory concentration of all the positive clones within the range of 0.125-0.250 microg/ml. Sequence analysis was performed for 10 of the positive clones, whose amino acid sequences were subsequently deduced, and 7 of them had conservative amino acid of P-X-WAS-X-W with the mean hydrophobic amino acid content of 71.4% in all the sequences. CONCLUSION: The phage-displayed peptide is capable of simulating the epitope of Salmonella typhimurium LPS.