Secretory expression of bovine herpesvirus type 1/5 glycoprotein E in Pichia pastoris for the differential diagnosis of vaccinated or infected cattle.

Bovine herpesvirus (BoHV) glycoprotein E (gE) is a non-essential envelope glycoprotein and the deletion of gE has been used to develop BoHV-1 and BoHV-5 differential vaccine strains. The DIVA (Differentiation of Infected from Vaccinated Animals) strategy, using marker vaccines based on gE-negative BoHV strains, allows the identification of vaccinated or infected animals in immunoassays designed to detect anti -gE antibodies. In this study a codon optimized synthetic sequence of gE containing highly conserved regions from BoHV-1 and BoHV-5 was expressed in Pichia pastoris . Following expression, the recombinant gE (rgE) was secreted and purified from the culture medium. The rgE was identified by Western blotting (WB) using sera from cattle naturally infected with BoHV-1 and/or BoHV-5, or sera from bovines experimentally infected with wild-type BoHV-5. Sera collected from cattle vaccinated with a BoHV-5 gI/gE/US9¯ marker vaccine failed to recognise rgE. Expression of rgE, based on a sequence containing highly conserved regions from BoHV-1 and BoHV-5, in P. pastoris enabled the production of large quantities of rgE suitable for use in immunoassays for the differentiation vaccinated or infected cattle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]