Fig. 5: Identification of four immunogenic MERS-CoV-S epitopes.

a Schematic representation of the MERS-CoV-S protein. The N-terminal domain (NTD), receptor-binding domain (RBD), S1/S2 cleavage site (S1/S2), fusion peptide (FP), S2‘ cleavage site (S2‘), heptad repeat 1 and 2 (HR1, HR2), transmembrane domain (TM) and cytoplasmic domain (CD) are illustrated. b Microarray of 15-mer peptides spanning the complete MERS-CoV-S protein with a 13 amino acid (AA) overlap. Immunogenic B-cell peptides are marked with red lines. c–f IgG binding to the respective peptides on MERS-CoV-S was measured in fluorescence intensity (as arbitrary fluorescence units, AFU), depicted as transformed values (areas sinus hyperbolicus (asinh), y axis), in all booster study participants (n = 10). Mean levels of peptide-binding IgG at baseline (Day (D) 0 (D0), white boxes) and 28 days after booster vaccination (Boost Day (B:D) 28 (B:D28), gray boxes) were compared using a two-sided Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed rank test and are depicted for each peptide (x-axis) within the immunogenic epitopes c AA 535-553 (AA 535–549, p = 0.014; AA 537–551, p = 0.002; AA 539–553, p = 0.002), d AA 887–913 (AA 887–901, p = 0.027; AA 889–903, p = 0.006; AA 891–905, p = 0.002; AA 897–911, p = 0.002; AA 899–913, p = 0.002), e AA 1225–1247 (AA 1225–1239, p = 0.002; AA 1227–1241, p = 0.002; AA 1229–1243, p = 0.002; AA 1231–1245, p = 0.002; AA 1233–1247, p = 0.004) and f AA 1333–1353 (AA 1333–1347, p = 0.002; AA 1335–1349, p = 0.002; AA 1337–1351, p = 0.002; AA 1339–1353, p = 0.002). Boxes indicate 25–75 percentile; whiskers are min. to max.; medians are shown as horizonal lines within the boxes. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.005. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.