A common epitope of β-lactoglobulin and serum retinol-binding proteins: elucidation of its core sequence using synthetic peptides

Abstract

One of the monoclonal antibodies raised against bovine β -lactoglobulin reacted with human serum retinol binding protein. The finding that this monoclonal antibody also reacted with the serum retinol binding proteins isolated from other animals, suggested that this epitopic conformation is conserved among these proteins. Using ELISA and various synthetic peptides of defined sequence, we show in this paper that the epitope defined by this monoclonal antibody comprises of the highly conserved core sequence of DTDY present in β -lactoglobulin and retinol binding proteins.