Measles is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by Rubeola virus. This acute systemic viral infection can cause symptoms including fever, skin rash, respiratory involvement, as well as other serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis, and even death. A series of recent measles cases has caused tremendous fear in the US, leading to quarantines in multiple communities. This measles attack even hit adults who were thought to be protected by the vaccine. The highest number of measles cases has been confirmed in this year ever since this disease was declared eliminated in the year of 2000.
Phage-displayed random peptide libraries provide a unique tool for identifying high-affinity virus-specific-peptide epitopes for the discovery of peptides reacting with antibodies generated in measles disease. A recent study by Yu et al. introduces a novel Ultra-Fast Selection of Peptide (UFSP) that utilizes amplified phage for subsequent panning, where high-affinity phage peptides are enriched. This new method significantly shortens the time of peptide selection from the previous 6 days to only 1 day. Application of the UFSP panning method can benefit the rapid identification of not only measles peptide epitopes, but also peptides reacting with antibodies generated in other diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), sarcoidosis and Behcet's disease.
