Proteomics-based diagnostic peptide discovery for severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus in patients

To detect severe fever thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV) in human serum samples from infected patients, a proteomic analysis for all five viral proteins was performed. The tryptic peptides in the sera from patients were subjected to a proteomic analysis using MS/MS spectral data of SFTSV-infected Vero cells as the reference. The N-terminal tryptic peptide of the nucleoprotein of SFTSV was found to be the major epitope of SFTSV that was detected in the patients samples. The existence of this peptide was strongly correlated with the viral load, suggesting that the peptide of nucleoprotein may be a useful proteomic target for direct detection of SFTSV.