ABSTRACT
The cross reactivity of mimotopes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) was investigated to obtain epitopes that have high cross reactivity. Five expression vectors encoding B cell mimotopes fused with Trx were constructed, and the mimotope proteins were purified. The cross reactivity of mimotope proteins with HCV positive sera was determined by ELISA. HCV pseudotype particles (HCVpp) were generated and applied to evaluate neutralization effects of the sera of BALB/c mice immuned with the mimotope proteins on infection of Huh7. 5 cells. Our data showed that the mimotope proteins (P1, P2, P5, P6, P8) could react to the HCV positive sera. The HCVpp infection inhibition of the sera of BALB/c mice immuned with P6 or P8 was detectable. These results suggest that the mimotopes may be valuable in the studies of anti-HCV infection and development of HCV vaccines.