Objective: To screen the special binding peptides to the MRC-5 cells infected by human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) so as to study the progress how HCMV recognizes susceptive host cells.
Methods: The special binding peptides to MRC-5 cells infected by HCMV rather than normal MRC-5 cells were screened by phage display system, and then identified by ELISA, the sequence of single strand DNA were determined and analyzed. In addition, the amino acid sequence of target protein was compared in protein sequence database from BLAST in GenBank, and then the physico-chemical property was also analyzed by Vector NTI software.
Results: The high affinity phage-ligands to MRC-5 infected by HCMV were found, and then sequences of peptides are EVNMSDS, NVSVFET and GQQPTTV respectively. These three peptides sequences were found in HCMV gB and gH protein.
Conclusion: The peptides that can special bind HCMV-infected MRC-5 cells has been screened by phage display system. This new finding should bring new ideas for studying the functional domain through which HCMV can recognize and bind host cells.