[Antigenicity of nine synthetic peptides of human immunodeficiency virus]

To establish a ELISA method to detect the infection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), we synthesized nine peptides ranging in length between 10-27 amino acid (aa) of HIV located in the regions of gp41, p24 of HIV-1 and gp36 of HIV-2, according to the published amino acid sequence and the position of antigenic determinants of viruses, by a solid-phase method. We detected 10 positive sera of HIV-1 and 4 positive sera of HIV-2 by a indirect ELISA using these synthetic peptides as the coating antigen. The results indicated that all of 10 serum specimens of HIV-1 were positive using SP1, 5, 6, and 7 derived from gp41, and SP7 was the best in antigenicity. The 4 serum specimens of HIV-2 were positive using SP8 and SP9 in the region of gp36 and their antigenicity to HIV-2 were similar, but the antigenicity of SP8 to HIV-1 was higher than that of SP9. All sera of HIV-1 and HIV-2 were positive using SP7 and SP8 as the mixed coating antigen. A comparison of our reagent with UBI reagent in detection of 60 positive and 96 negative control sera for HIV showed that the coincident rate for positive ness was 98.33% (59/60), for negative ness was 100%, and the general coincident rate was 99.36% (155/156). It is concluded that SP7 and SP8 as the mixed coating antigen are applicable in the diagnosis of HIV infection.