Production and characteristics of strain common antibodies against a synthetic polypeptide corresponding to the C-terminal region of potato virus Y coat protein.
Comparing the predicted amino acid sequence between two Japanese potato virus Y (PVY) strains, necrotic strain and ordinary strain, it was found that the C-terminal regions (H2N-HTTEDVSPSMHTLLGVKNM-COOH) of the coat proteins in the two strains were completely conserved. The conserved amino acid sequence was also found in the C-terminal region coat protein of PVY-36, a strain which did not react with monoclonal antibodies specific to the necrotic and the ordinary strain respectively. Antibodies were produced against a synthetic polypeptide PVY-C19 consisting of 19 amino acids, which correspond to the C-terminal region of the coat protein, using 4 coupling combinations of polypeptide PVY-C19 to protein carriers. Carrier-free polypeptides and those coupled to ovalbumin with ECDI (ethyl-dimethylaminopropyl carbodiimide) produced high titer of antibodies and detected PVY strains from PVY-infected plants by Western blot analysis and by ELISA.