Cloning and Expression of the G1 Epitope of Bovine Ephemeral Fever Virus G Glycoprotein in Escherichia Coli

Bovine ephemeral fever (BEF) is an acute epidemic disease in cattle and water buffalo, spanning tropical and subtropical zones of Asia, Australia, and Africa. In recent years, BEF has been distributed in many provinces of Iran and caused economic losses. In this study the sequence encoding the G1 epitope of bovine ephemeral fever virus (BEFV) G glycoprotein was amplified by PCR, ligated into the prokaryotic expression vector, pMAL-c2X, and subsequently cloned into Rosetta strain of Escherichia coli. After being induced with Isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside, SDS-PAGE analysis showed that a protein of 58 kDa molecular weight, consistent with the expected molecular weight of maltose binding protein-G1 fusion protein, was expressed.Also, dot blot analysis confirmed that the expressed protein has specifically reacted with an anti-BEFV mouse serum. In conclusion, the results indicate that the recombinant G1 epitope expressed in this study could be used as a coating antigen to develop an ELISA for bovine ephemeral fever diagnosis