Correlation of serotype specificity and protein structure of the five U.S. serotypes of bluetongue virus

The relationship between serotype specificity and protein structure was studied by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, peptide mapping and radioimmune precipitation (RIP) of structural and non-structural proteins of the five U.S. serotypes of bluetongue virus (BTV). The surface proteins, VP2 and VP5, showed the most variation in size among the serotypes. Peptide mapping of the proteins showed that VP2 is unique for each of the U.S. serotypes. The nucleocapsid and non-structural proteins showed a high degree of conservation, whereas the other surface protein, VP5, showed intermediate conservation among the serotypes. Monospecific neutralizing antiserum produced in rabbits against each serotype was used in cross-RIP against cytoplasmic extracts prepared from cells infected with each BTV serotype. There were extensive cross-reactions among those proteins which showed a high degree of structural conservation, whereas VP2 was immunoprecipitated best in the homologous RIP system. Thus, a correlation between serotype specificity and protein structure was shown among the five U.S. serotypes of BTV.