The Human Parvovirus B19 is the agent of several disease states: erythema contagiosum, a transient arthritis, and aplastic crisis in sickle cell anemia patients, and hydrops fetalis (a usually fatal outcome of pregnan- cy). B19 cannot be cultured using conventional techniques and antigen is difficult to collect from patients. As a result, commercial development of serological tests for the diagnosis of B19 infections has not been pos- sible. The intent of the proposed research is to develop synthetic peptides which can be used as capture antigens in ELISA-based immunodiag- nostic tests. To achieve this end, hexapeptide synthesis and epitope screening techniques will be used. Epitopes that significantly react with disease state sera will be used in the development of a prototype ELISA. This project will lead directly to Phase II clinical evaluations and thence to Phase III marketing.
Public Health Relevance Statement: Terms: Parvoviridae; virus protein; synthetic peptide; virus classification; serology /serodiagnosis; virus antigen; antigen presentation; antibody specificity; immunologic assay /test; epitope mapping; enzyme linked immunosorbent assay; immunoglobulin M; immunoglobulin G; diagnosis design /evaluation; diagnosis quality /standard; communicable disease diagnosis; spectrometry; chemical synthesis
