1Department of Veterinary Public Health and Animal Pathology, University of Bologna, Italy Via Tolara di Sopra, 50, 40064-Ozzano Emilia (Bo)-Italy
2Department of Animal Pathology, Hygiene, and Veterinary Public Health, University of Milan, Italy. Via Celoria 10, 20133-Milan, Italy.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
The feline coronaviruses (FCoVs), belonging to the family Coronaviridae, order Nidovirales, are responsible of an inapparent or mild enteric infection, but also cause a progressive, fatal immune-mediated disease, feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), predominantly in the cats from multiple-cat households. The FCoVs virion contains three principal structural proteins: the S spike protein, the M membrane protein and the most representative nucleocapsid protein N. The N protein binds viral RNA to form a helical core structure during virion assembling and together with the M protein is a component of the viral core; in addition to its structural role, the N protein also participates in viral RNA transcription, replication, translation and in modulating the metabolism of host cells. Several studies have identified antigenic determinants in the N protein of human and animal coronaviruses and have demonstrated that the N protein is one of the immunodominant antigens in the CoV family. The aim of this study was to investigate the antigenic role of the N protein, carrying out detailed phylogenetic and computational analysis of the N protein sequences of FCoV strains detected in healthy and diseased cats. Preliminary results confirm a possible involvement of the nucleocaspid protein in the cell immune-mediated response.
