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Ananya, Panchariya DC, Karthic A, Singh SP, Mani A, Chawade A, Kushwaha S. Vaccine design and development: Exploring the interface with computational biology and AI. Int Rev Immunol 2024:1-20. [PMID: 38982912 DOI: 10.1080/08830185.2024.2374546] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2024] [Accepted: 06/26/2024] [Indexed: 07/11/2024]
Abstract
Computational biology involves applying computer science and informatics techniques in biology to understand complex biological data. It allows us to collect, connect, and analyze biological data at a large scale and build predictive models. In the twenty first century, computational resources along with Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been widely used in various fields of biological sciences such as biochemistry, structural biology, immunology, microbiology, and genomics to handle massive data for decision-making, including in applications such as drug design and vaccine development, one of the major areas of focus for human and animal welfare. The knowledge of available computational resources and AI-enabled tools in vaccine design and development can improve our ability to conduct cutting-edge research. Therefore, this review article aims to summarize important computational resources and AI-based tools. Further, the article discusses the various applications and limitations of AI tools in vaccine development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ananya
- National Institute of Animal Biotechnology, Hyderabad, India
| | | | | | | | - Ashutosh Mani
- Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Prayagraj, India
| | - Aakash Chawade
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden
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Dashti F, Raisi A, Pourali G, Razavi ZS, Ravaei F, Sadri Nahand J, Kourkinejad-Gharaei F, Mirazimi SMA, Zamani J, Tarrahimofrad H, Hashemian SMR, Mirzaei H. A computational approach to design a multiepitope vaccine against H5N1 virus. Virol J 2024; 21:67. [PMID: 38509569 PMCID: PMC10953225 DOI: 10.1186/s12985-024-02337-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Accepted: 03/07/2024] [Indexed: 03/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Since 1997, highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, such as H5N1, have been recognized as a possible pandemic hazard to men and the poultry business. The rapid rate of mutation of H5N1 viruses makes the whole process of designing vaccines extremely challenging. Here, we used an in silico approach to design a multi-epitope vaccine against H5N1 influenza A virus using hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) antigens. B-cell epitopes, Cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) and Helper T lymphocyte (HTL) were predicted via IEDB, NetMHC-4 and NetMHCII-2.3 respectively. Two adjuvants consisting of Human β-defensin-3 (HβD-3) along with pan HLA DR-binding epitope (PADRE) have been chosen to induce more immune response. Linkers including KK, AAY, HEYGAEALERAG, GPGPGPG and double EAAAK were utilized to link epitopes and adjuvants. This construct encodes a protein having 350 amino acids and 38.46 kDa molecular weight. Antigenicity of ~ 1, the allergenicity of non-allergen, toxicity of negative and solubility of appropriate were confirmed through Vaxigen, AllerTOP, ToxDL and DeepSoluE, respectively. The 3D structure of H5N1 was refined and validated with a Z-Score of - 0.87 and an overall Ramachandran of 99.7%. Docking analysis showed H5N1 could interact with TLR7 (docking score of - 374.08 and by 4 hydrogen bonds) and TLR8 (docking score of - 414.39 and by 3 hydrogen bonds). Molecular dynamics simulations results showed RMSD and RMSF of 0.25 nm and 0.2 for H5N1-TLR7 as well as RMSD and RMSF of 0.45 nm and 0.4 for H5N1-TLR8 complexes, respectively. Molecular Mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area (MM/PBSA) confirmed stability and continuity of interaction between H5N1-TLR7 with the total binding energy of - 29.97 kJ/mol and H5N1-TLR8 with the total binding energy of - 23.9 kJ/mol. Investigating immune response simulation predicted evidence of the ability to stimulate T and B cells of the immunity system that shows the merits of this H5N1 vaccine proposed candidate for clinical trials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fatemeh Dashti
- School of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
- Student Research Committee, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Arash Raisi
- School of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
- Student Research Committee, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Ghazaleh Pourali
- Metabolic Syndrome Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Zahra Sadat Razavi
- School of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
- Student Research Committee, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Fatemeh Ravaei
- School of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
- Student Research Committee, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Javid Sadri Nahand
- Infectious and Tropical Diseases Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Fatemeh Kourkinejad-Gharaei
- Student Research Committee, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
- Department of Infectious Diseases, Emam Reza Hospital, Sirjan School of Medical Sciences, Sirjan, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Seyed Mohammad Ali Mirazimi
- School of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
- Student Research Committee, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Javad Zamani
- Department of Animal Biotechnology, National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (NIGEB), Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
| | - Hossein Tarrahimofrad
- Department of Animal Biotechnology, National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (NIGEB), Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran.
| | - Seyed Mohammad Reza Hashemian
- Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center (CRDRC), National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran.
| | - Hamed Mirzaei
- Research Center for Biochemistry and Nutrition in Metabolic Diseases, Institute for Basic Sciences, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Dolley A, Goswami HB, Dowerah D, Dey U, Kumar A, Hmuaka V, Mukhopadhyay R, Kundu D, Varghese GM, Doley R, Chandra Deka R, Namsa ND. Reverse vaccinology and immunoinformatics approach to design a chimeric epitope vaccine against Orientia tsutsugamushi. Heliyon 2024; 10:e23616. [PMID: 38187223 PMCID: PMC10767154 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e23616] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 12/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 01/09/2024] Open
Abstract
Scrub typhus is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi and it is reportedly associated with up to 20 % of hospitalized cases of febrile illnesses. The major challenge of vaccine development is the lack of identified antigens that can induce both heterotypic and homotypic immunity including the production of antibodies, cytotoxic T lymphocyte, and helper T lymphocytes. We employed a comprehensive immunoinformatic prediction algorithm to identify immunogenic epitopes of the 56-kDa type-specific cell membrane surface antigen and surface cell antigen A of O. tsutsugamushi to select potential candidates for developing vaccines and diagnostic assays. We identified 35 linear and 29 continuous immunogenic B-cell epitopes and 51 and 27 strong-binding T-cell epitopes of major histocompatibility complex class I and class II molecules, respectively, in the conserved and variable regions of the 56-kDa type-specific surface antigen. The predicted B- and T-cell epitopes were used to develop immunogenic multi-epitope candidate vaccines and showed to elicit a broad-range of immune protection. A stable interactions between the multi-epitope vaccines and the host fibronectin protein were observed using docking and simulation methods. Molecular dynamics simulation studies demonstrated that the multi-epitope vaccine constructs and fibronectin docked models were stable during simulation time. Furthermore, the multi-epitope vaccine exhibited properties such as antigenicity, non-allergenicity and ability to induce interferon gamma production and had strong associations with their respective human leukocyte antigen alleles of world-wide population coverage. A correlation of immune simulations and the in-silico predicted immunogenic potential of multi-epitope vaccines implicate for further investigations to accelerate designing of epitope-based vaccine candidates and chimeric antigens for development of serological diagnostic assays for scrub typhus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anutee Dolley
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Himanshu Ballav Goswami
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Dikshita Dowerah
- Department of Chemical Sciences, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Upalabdha Dey
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Aditya Kumar
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Vanlal Hmuaka
- Entomology and Biothreat Management Division, Defence Research Laboratory, Tezpur, 784001, Assam, India
| | - Rupak Mukhopadhyay
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Debasree Kundu
- Department of Infectious Diseases, Christian Medical College, Vellore, 632002, Tamil Nadu, India
| | - George M. Varghese
- Department of Infectious Diseases, Christian Medical College, Vellore, 632002, Tamil Nadu, India
| | - Robin Doley
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Ramesh Chandra Deka
- Department of Chemical Sciences, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
| | - Nima D. Namsa
- Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Tezpur University, Napaam, 784028, Assam, India
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Razali SA, Shamsir MS, Ishak NF, Low CF, Azemin WA. Riding the wave of innovation: immunoinformatics in fish disease control. PeerJ 2023; 11:e16419. [PMID: 38089909 PMCID: PMC10712311 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16419] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2023] [Accepted: 10/17/2023] [Indexed: 12/18/2023] Open
Abstract
The spread of infectious illnesses has been a significant factor restricting aquaculture production. To maximise aquatic animal health, vaccination tactics are very successful and cost-efficient for protecting fish and aquaculture animals against many disease pathogens. However, due to the increasing number of immunological cases and their complexity, it is impossible to manage, analyse, visualise, and interpret such data without the assistance of advanced computational techniques. Hence, the use of immunoinformatics tools is crucial, as they not only facilitate the management of massive amounts of data but also greatly contribute to the creation of fresh hypotheses regarding immune responses. In recent years, advances in biotechnology and immunoinformatics have opened up new research avenues for generating novel vaccines and enhancing existing vaccinations against outbreaks of infectious illnesses, thereby reducing aquaculture losses. This review focuses on understanding in silico epitope-based vaccine design, the creation of multi-epitope vaccines, the molecular interaction of immunogenic vaccines, and the application of immunoinformatics in fish disease based on the frequency of their application and reliable results. It is believed that it can bridge the gap between experimental and computational approaches and reduce the need for experimental research, so that only wet laboratory testing integrated with in silico techniques may yield highly promising results and be useful for the development of vaccines for fish.
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Affiliation(s)
- Siti Aisyah Razali
- Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
- Biological Security and Sustainability Research Interest Group (BIOSES), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
| | - Mohd Shahir Shamsir
- Department of Biosciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
| | - Nur Farahin Ishak
- Faculty of Science and Marine Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
| | - Chen-Fei Low
- Institute of Systems Biology (INBIOSIS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Wan-Atirah Azemin
- School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
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Hashemzadeh P, Nezhad SA, Khoshkhabar H. Immunoinformatics analysis of Brucella melitensis to approach a suitable vaccine against brucellosis. J Genet Eng Biotechnol 2023; 21:152. [PMID: 38019359 PMCID: PMC10686926 DOI: 10.1186/s43141-023-00614-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2023] [Accepted: 11/14/2023] [Indexed: 11/30/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Brucellosis caused by B. melitensis is one of the most important common diseases between humans and livestock. Currently, live attenuated vaccines are used for this disease, which causes many problems, and unfortunately, there is no effective vaccine for human brucellosis. The aim of our research was to design a recombinant vaccine containing potential immunogenic epitopes against B. melitensis. METHODS In this study, using immunoinformatics approaches, 3 antigens Omp31, Omp25, and Omp28 were identified and the amino acid sequence of the selected antigens was determined in NCBI. Signal peptides were predicted by SignaIP-5.0 server. To predict B-cell epitopes from ABCpred and Bcepred servers, to predict MHC-I epitopes from RANKPEP and SYFPEITHI servers, to predict MHC-II epitopes from RANKPEP and MHCPred servers, and to predict CTL epitopes were used from the CTLPred server. Potentially immunogenic final epitopes were joined by flexible linkers. Finally, allergenicity (AllerTOP 2.0 server), antigenicity (Vaxijen server), physicochemical properties (ProtParam server), solubility (Protein-sol server), secondary (PSIPRED and GRO4 servers) and tertiary structure (I-TASSER server), refinement (GalaxyWEB server), validation (ProSA-web, Molprobity, and ERRAT servers), and optimization of the codon sequence (JCat server) of the structure of the multi-epitope vaccine were analyzed. RESULTS The analysis of immunoinformatics tools showed that the designed vaccine has high quality, acceptable physicochemical properties, and can induce humoral and cellular immune responses against B. melitensis bacteria. In addition, the high expression level of recombinant antigens in the E. coli host was observed through in silico simulation. CONCLUSION According to the results in silico, the designed vaccine can be a suitable candidate to fight brucellosis and in vitro and in vivo studies are needed to evaluate the research of this study.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pejman Hashemzadeh
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran.
| | - Saba Asgari Nezhad
- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran
| | - Hossein Khoshkhabar
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran
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Kumar N, Bajiya N, Patiyal S, Raghava GPS. Multi-perspectives and challenges in identifying B-cell epitopes. Protein Sci 2023; 32:e4785. [PMID: 37733481 PMCID: PMC10578127 DOI: 10.1002/pro.4785] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2023] [Revised: 09/11/2023] [Accepted: 09/16/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023]
Abstract
The identification of B-cell epitopes (BCEs) in antigens is a crucial step in developing recombinant vaccines or immunotherapies for various diseases. Over the past four decades, numerous in silico methods have been developed for predicting BCEs. However, existing reviews have only covered specific aspects, such as the progress in predicting conformational or linear BCEs. Therefore, in this paper, we have undertaken a systematic approach to provide a comprehensive review covering all aspects associated with the identification of BCEs. First, we have covered the experimental techniques developed over the years for identifying linear and conformational epitopes, including the limitations and challenges associated with these techniques. Second, we have briefly described the historical perspectives and resources that maintain experimentally validated information on BCEs. Third, we have extensively reviewed the computational methods developed for predicting conformational BCEs from the structure of the antigen, as well as the methods for predicting conformational epitopes from the sequence. Fourth, we have systematically reviewed the in silico methods developed in the last four decades for predicting linear or continuous BCEs. Finally, we have discussed the overall challenge of identifying continuous or conformational BCEs. In this review, we only listed major computational resources; a complete list with the URL is available from the BCinfo website (https://webs.iiitd.edu.in/raghava/bcinfo/).
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Affiliation(s)
- Nishant Kumar
- Department of Computational BiologyIndraprastha Institute of Information TechnologyNew DelhiIndia
| | - Nisha Bajiya
- Department of Computational BiologyIndraprastha Institute of Information TechnologyNew DelhiIndia
| | - Sumeet Patiyal
- Department of Computational BiologyIndraprastha Institute of Information TechnologyNew DelhiIndia
| | - Gajendra P. S. Raghava
- Department of Computational BiologyIndraprastha Institute of Information TechnologyNew DelhiIndia
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Angaitkar P, Aljrees T, Kumar Pandey S, Kumar A, Janghel RR, Sahu TP, Singh KU, Singh T. Inferring linear-B cell epitopes using 2-step metaheuristic variant-feature selection using genetic algorithm. Sci Rep 2023; 13:14593. [PMID: 37670007 PMCID: PMC10480427 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-41179-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2023] [Accepted: 08/23/2023] [Indexed: 09/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Linear-B cell epitopes (LBCE) play a vital role in vaccine design; thus, efficiently detecting them from protein sequences is of primary importance. These epitopes consist of amino acids arranged in continuous or discontinuous patterns. Vaccines employ attenuated viruses and purified antigens. LBCE stimulate humoral immunity in the body, where B and T cells target circulating infections. To predict LBCE, the underlying protein sequences undergo a process of feature extraction, feature selection, and classification. Various system models have been proposed for this purpose, but their classification accuracy is only moderate. In order to enhance the accuracy of LBCE classification, this paper presents a novel 2-step metaheuristic variant-feature selection method that combines a linear support vector classifier (LSVC) with a Modified Genetic Algorithm (MGA). The feature selection model employs mono-peptide, dipeptide, and tripeptide features, focusing on the most diverse ones. These selected features are fed into a machine learning (ML)-based parallel ensemble classifier. The ensemble classifier combines correctly classified instances from various classifiers, including k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN), random forest (RF), logistic regression (LR), and support vector machine (SVM). The ensemble classifier came up with an impressively high accuracy of 99.3% as a result of its work. This accuracy is superior to the most recent models that are considered to be state-of-the-art for linear B-cell classification. As a direct consequence of this, the entire system model can now be utilised effectively in real-time clinical settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pratik Angaitkar
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E. Road, Raipur, 492010, Chhattisgarh, India
| | - Turki Aljrees
- College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Hafr Al Batin, 39524, Hafar Al Batin, Saudi Arabia
| | - Saroj Kumar Pandey
- Department of Computer Engineering & Applications, GLA University, Mathura, India
| | - Ankit Kumar
- Department of Computer Engineering & Applications, GLA University, Mathura, India.
| | - Rekh Ram Janghel
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E. Road, Raipur, 492010, Chhattisgarh, India
| | - Tirath Prasad Sahu
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E. Road, Raipur, 492010, Chhattisgarh, India
| | | | - Teekam Singh
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Graphic Era Deemed to be University, Dehradun, 248002, Uttarakhand, India
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Angaitkar P, Janghel RR, Sahu TP. DL-TCNN: Deep Learning-based Temporal Convolutional Neural Network for prediction of conformational B-cell epitopes. 3 Biotech 2023; 13:297. [PMID: 37575599 PMCID: PMC10412510 DOI: 10.1007/s13205-023-03716-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2023] [Accepted: 07/24/2023] [Indexed: 08/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Prediction of conformational B-cell epitopes (CBCE) is an essential phase for vaccine design, drug invention, and accurate disease diagnosis. Many laboratorial and computational approaches have been developed to predict CBCE. However, laboratorial experiments are costly and time consuming, leading to the popularity of Machine Learning (ML)-based computational methods. Although ML methods have succeeded in many domains, achieving higher accuracy in CBCE prediction remains a challenge. To overcome this drawback and consider the limitations of ML methods, this paper proposes a novel DL-based framework for CBCE prediction, leveraging the capabilities of deep learning in the medical domain. The proposed model is named Deep Learning-based Temporal Convolutional Neural Network (DL-TCNN), which hybridizes empirical hyper-tuned 1D-CNN and TCN. TCN is an architecture that employs causal convolutions and dilations, adapting well to sequential input with extensive receptive fields. To train the proposed model, physicochemical features are firstly extracted from antigen sequences. Next, the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) is applied to address the class imbalance problem. Finally, the proposed DL-TCNN is employed for the prediction of CBCE. The model's performance is evaluated and validated on a benchmark antigen-antibody dataset. The DL-TCNN achieves 94.44% accuracy, and 0.989 AUC score for the training dataset, 78.53% accuracy, and 0.661 AUC score for the validation dataset; and 85.10% accuracy, 0.855 AUC score for the testing dataset. The proposed model outperforms all the existing CBCE methods.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pratik Angaitkar
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E. Road, Raipur, C.G. 492010 India
| | - Rekh Ram Janghel
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E. Road, Raipur, C.G. 492010 India
| | - Tirath Prasad Sahu
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E. Road, Raipur, C.G. 492010 India
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Azulay A, Cohen-Lavi L, Friedman LM, McGargill MA, Hertz T. Mapping antibody footprints using binding profiles. CELL REPORTS METHODS 2023; 3:100566. [PMID: 37671022 PMCID: PMC10475849 DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2023.100566] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2023] [Revised: 07/26/2023] [Accepted: 07/31/2023] [Indexed: 09/07/2023]
Abstract
The increasing use of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) in biology and medicine necessitates efficient methods for characterizing their binding epitopes. Here, we developed a high-throughput antibody footprinting method based on binding profiles. We used an antigen microarray to profile 23 human anti-influenza hemagglutinin (HA) mAbs using HA proteins of 43 human influenza strains isolated between 1918 and 2018. We showed that the mAb's binding profile can be used to characterize its influenza subtype specificity, binding region, and binding site. We present mAb-Patch-an epitope prediction method that is based on a mAb's binding profile and the 3D structure of its antigen. mAb-Patch was evaluated using four mAbs with known solved mAb-HA structures. mAb-Patch identifies over 67% of the true epitope when considering only 50-60 positions along the antigen. Our work provides proof of concept for utilizing antibody binding profiles to screen large panels of mAbs and to down-select antibodies for further functional studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Asaf Azulay
- The Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
- National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
| | - Liel Cohen-Lavi
- National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
- Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
| | - Lilach M. Friedman
- The Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
- National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
| | - Maureen A. McGargill
- Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 38105, USA
| | - Tomer Hertz
- The Shraga Segal Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
- National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA, USA
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Rampuria P, Mosyak L, Root AR, Svenson K, Agostino MJ, LaVallie ER. Molecular insights into recognition of GUCY2C by T-cell engaging bispecific antibody anti-GUCY2CxCD3. Sci Rep 2023; 13:13408. [PMID: 37591971 PMCID: PMC10435522 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-40467-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2023] [Accepted: 08/10/2023] [Indexed: 08/19/2023] Open
Abstract
The intestinal epithelial receptor Guanylyl Cyclase C (GUCY2C) is a tumor-associated cell surface antigen expressed across gastrointestinal malignancies that can serve as an efficacious target for colorectal cancer immunotherapy. Here, we describe a yeast surface-display approach combined with an orthogonal peptide-based mapping strategy to identify the GUCY2C binding epitope of a novel anti-GUCY2CxCD3 bispecific antibody (BsAb) that recently advanced into the clinic for the treatment of cancer. The target epitope was localized to the N-terminal helix H2 of human GUCY2C, which enabled the determination of the crystal structure of the minimal GUCY2C epitope in complex with the anti-GUCY2C antibody domain. To understand if this minimal epitope covers the entire antibody binding region and to investigate the impact of epitope position on the antibody's activity, we further determined the structure of this interaction in the context of the full-length extracellular domain (ECD) of GUCY2C. We found that this epitope is positioned on the protruding membrane-distal helical region of GUCY2C and that its specific location on the surface of GUCY2C dictates the close spatial proximity of the two antigen arms in a diabody arrangement essential to the tumor killing activity of GUCY2CxCD3 BsAb.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pragya Rampuria
- Biomedicine Design, Pfizer Inc., 610 Main St., Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
| | - Lidia Mosyak
- Biomedicine Design, Pfizer Inc., 610 Main St., Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
| | - Adam R Root
- Generate Biomedicines Inc, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Kristine Svenson
- Biomedicine Design, Pfizer Inc., 610 Main St., Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | | | - Edward R LaVallie
- Biomedicine Design, Pfizer Inc., 610 Main St., Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
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Pagniez J, Petitdidier E, Parra-Zuleta O, Pissarra J, Bras-Gonçalves R. A systematic review of peptide-based serological tests for the diagnosis of leishmaniasis. Parasite 2023; 30:10. [PMID: 37010451 PMCID: PMC10069404 DOI: 10.1051/parasite/2023011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2021] [Accepted: 03/06/2023] [Indexed: 04/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Serological methods should meet the needs of leishmaniasis diagnosis due to their high sensitivity and specificity, economical and adaptable rapid diagnostic test format, and ease of use. Currently, the performances of serological diagnostic tests, despite improvements with recombinant proteins, vary greatly depending on the clinical form of leishmaniasis and the endemic area. Peptide-based serological tests are promising as they could compensate for antigenic variability and improve performance, independently of Leishmania species and subspecies circulating in the endemic areas. The objective of this systematic review was to inventory all studies published from 2002 to 2022 that evaluate synthetic peptides for serological diagnosis of human leishmaniases and also to highlight the performance (e.g., sensitivity and specificity) of each peptide reported in these studies. All clinical forms of leishmaniasis, visceral and tegumentary, and all Leishmania species responsible for these diseases were considered. Following PRISMA statement recommendations, 1,405 studies were identified but only 22 articles met the selection criteria and were included in this systematic review. These original research articles described 77 different peptides, of which several have promising performance for visceral or tegumentary leishmaniasis diagnosis. This review highlights the importance of and growing interest in synthetic peptides used for serological diagnosis of leishmaniases, and their performances compared to some widely used tests with recombinant proteins.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julie Pagniez
- UMR177 INTERTRYP 911 avenue Agropolis B.P. 64501 34394 Montpellier France
| | - Elodie Petitdidier
- UMR177 INTERTRYP 911 avenue Agropolis B.P. 64501 34394 Montpellier France
| | | | - Joana Pissarra
- UMR177 INTERTRYP 911 avenue Agropolis B.P. 64501 34394 Montpellier France
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12
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Gupta S, Nerli S, Kandy SK, Mersky GL, Sgourakis NG. HLA3DB: comprehensive annotation of peptide/HLA complexes enables blind structure prediction of T cell epitopes. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.03.20.533510. [PMID: 36993660 PMCID: PMC10055217 DOI: 10.1101/2023.03.20.533510] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/31/2023]
Abstract
The class I proteins of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC-I) display epitopic peptides derived from endogenous proteins on the cell surface for immune surveillance. Accurate modeling of peptide/HLA (pHLA, the human MHC) structures has been mired by conformational diversity of the central peptide residues, which are critical for recognition by T cell receptors. Here, analysis of X-ray crystal structures within a curated database (HLA3DB) shows that pHLA complexes encompassing multiple HLA allotypes present a discrete set of peptide backbone conformations. Leveraging these representative backbones, we employ a regression model trained on terms of a physically relevant energy function to develop a comparative modeling approach for nonamer peptide/HLA structures named RepPred. Our method outperforms the top pHLA modeling approach by up to 19% in terms of structural accuracy, and consistently predicts blind targets not included in our training set. Insights from our work provide a framework for linking conformational diversity with antigen immunogenicity and receptor cross-reactivity.
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13
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Ayyagari VS. Design of Linear B Cell Epitopes and Evaluation of Their Antigenicity, Allergenicity, and Toxicity: An Immunoinformatics Approach. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2673:197-209. [PMID: 37258916 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3239-0_14] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Immunoinformatics is a modern branch of science formed as a result of the intersection between immunology and computer science. One of the important steps in the design of multi-epitope vaccines is the prediction of B cell epitopes. B cell epitopes are of two types, linear and discontinuous. Linear epitope residues lie next to each other in the primary structure of a protein. The amino acids that constitute discontinuous epitopes lie close to each other in the three-dimensional structure of the protein. Recognition of B cell epitopes by antibodies on an antigen constitutes an important event in the immune responses toward the antigenic challenge and also forms the basis for several immunological applications. Prediction of B cell epitopes in an antigen constitutes one of the important steps in the design of multi-epitope-based vaccines. This chapter explains the prediction of linear B cell epitopes in an antigen as well as their allergenicity, antigenicity, and toxicity by using online tools.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vijaya Sai Ayyagari
- Department of Biotechnology, School of Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vignan's Foundation for Science, Technology & Research (Deemed to be University), Vadlamudi, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India
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14
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Qi Y, Zheng P, Huang G. DeepLBCEPred: A Bi-LSTM and multi-scale CNN-based deep learning method for predicting linear B-cell epitopes. Front Microbiol 2023; 14:1117027. [PMID: 36910218 PMCID: PMC9992402 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1117027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2022] [Accepted: 01/17/2023] [Indexed: 02/24/2023] Open
Abstract
The epitope is the site where antigens and antibodies interact and is vital to understanding the immune system. Experimental identification of linear B-cell epitopes (BCEs) is expensive, is labor-consuming, and has a low throughput. Although a few computational methods have been proposed to address this challenge, there is still a long way to go for practical applications. We proposed a deep learning method called DeepLBCEPred for predicting linear BCEs, which consists of bi-directional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM), feed-forward attention, and multi-scale convolutional neural networks (CNNs). We extensively tested the performance of DeepLBCEPred through cross-validation and independent tests on training and two testing datasets. The empirical results showed that the DeepLBCEPred obtained state-of-the-art performance. We also investigated the contribution of different deep learning elements to recognize linear BCEs. In addition, we have developed a user-friendly web application for linear BCEs prediction, which is freely available for all scientific researchers at: http://www.biolscience.cn/DeepLBCEPred/.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yue Qi
- School of Information Engineering, Shaoyang University, Shaoyang, Hunan, China
| | - Peijie Zheng
- School of Information Engineering, Shaoyang University, Shaoyang, Hunan, China
| | - Guohua Huang
- School of Information Engineering, Shaoyang University, Shaoyang, Hunan, China
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15
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Bioinformatics Designing and Molecular Modelling of a Universal mRNA Vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Vaccines (Basel) 2022; 10:vaccines10122107. [PMID: 36560516 PMCID: PMC9785986 DOI: 10.3390/vaccines10122107] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Revised: 11/30/2022] [Accepted: 12/06/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
At this present stage of COVID-19 re-emergence, designing an effective candidate vaccine for different variants of SARS-CoV-2 is a study worthy of consideration. This research used bioinformatics tools to design an mRNA vaccine that captures all the circulating variants and lineages of the virus in its construct. Sequences of these viruses were retrieved across the six continents and analyzed using different tools to screen for the preferable CD8+ T lymphocytes (CTL), CD4+ T lymphocytes (HTL), and B-cell epitopes. These epitopes were used to design the vaccine. In addition, several other co-translational residues were added to the construct of an mRNA vaccine whose molecular weight is 285.29686 kDa with an estimated pI of 9.2 and has no cross affinity with the human genome with an estimated over 68% to cover the world population. It is relatively stable, with minimal deformability in its interaction with the human innate immune receptor, which includes TLR 3 and TLR 9. The overall result has proven that the designed candidate vaccine is capable of modulating cell-mediated immune responses by activating the actions of CD4+ T cells, natural killer cells, and macrophages, and displayed an increased memory T cell and B cell activities, which may further be validated via in vivo and in vitro techniques.
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16
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Glycoprotein attachment with host cell surface receptor ephrin B2 and B3 in mediating entry of nipah and hendra virus: a computational investigation. J CHEM SCI 2022; 134:114. [DOI: 10.1007/s12039-022-02110-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2022] [Revised: 09/23/2022] [Accepted: 10/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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17
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A Method for Screening Proteases That Can Specifically Hydrolyze the Epitope AA83-105 of α s1-Casein Allergen. Foods 2022; 11:foods11213322. [PMID: 36359934 PMCID: PMC9655875 DOI: 10.3390/foods11213322] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2022] [Revised: 10/08/2022] [Accepted: 10/11/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Milk protein hydrolysates are common in infant formula, but some of them retain allergenicity due to incomplete hydrolysis of the epitopes for milk allergens. This study explored a method for screening proteases that could specifically hydrolyze the epitope of αs1-casein allergen. Firstly, the αs1-casein epitope AA83-105 was synthesized by the solid-phase synthesis method. Then, after purification and identification, the complete antigen was prepared through coupling with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and was used to raise monoclonal antibodies (mAb) in BALB/c mice. Additionally, an indirect competitive-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) was established. The mAb raised against αs1-casein protein was used as a control. The results showed that the purity of the synthetic epitope was >90%, and the coupling rate with BSA was 6.31. The mAb subtype is IgG1, with a titer of 1:320,000. The mAb reacted specifically with αs1-casein but did not cross-react with soybean protein. The linear regression equation of the competitive inhibition curve was y = −9.22x + 100.78 (R2 = 0.9891). The detection limit of icELISA method was more sensitive, and the method showed good accuracy and repeatability. The amounts of antigen residues in papain protease hydrolysates were relatively small, and the epitope fragment was detected in papain hydrolysate via mass spectrometry. This study provides ideas and methods for screening proteases that specifically hydrolyze the epitopes of milk allergens and also provides a superior foundation for the development of an advanced hypoallergenic formula.
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18
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Howe JG, Stack G. Relationship between B-cell epitope structural properties and the immunogenicity of blood group antigens: Outlier properties of the Kell K1 antigen. Transfusion 2022; 62:2349-2362. [PMID: 36205403 DOI: 10.1111/trf.17110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2022] [Revised: 08/17/2022] [Accepted: 08/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND The immunogenicities of polypeptide blood group antigens vary, despite most being created by single amino acid (AA) substitutions. To study the basis of these differences, we employed an immunoinformatics approach to determine whether AA substitution sites of blood group antigens have structural features typical of B-cell epitopes and whether the extent of B-cell epitope properties is positively related to immunogenicity. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS Fifteen structural property prediction programs were used to determine the likelihood of β-turns, surface accessibility, flexibility, hydrophilicity, particular AA composition and AA pairs, and other B-cell epitope properties at AA substitution sites of polypeptide blood group antigens. RESULTS AA substitution sites of Lua , Jka , E, c, M, Fya , C, and S were each located in regions with at least two structural features typical of B-cell epitopes. The substitution site of K, the most immunogenic non-ABO/D antigen, scored the lowest for most B-cell epitope properties and was the only one not predicted to be part of a linear B-cell epitope. The most immunogenic antigens studied (K, Jka , Lua , E) had B-cell epitope structural properties determined by the fewest programs; the least immunogenic antigens (e.g., Fya , S, C, c) had B-cell epitope properties according to the most programs. DISCUSSION Counter to prediction, the immunogenicity of polypeptide blood group antigens was not positively related to B-cell epitope structural features present at their AA-substitution sites. Instead, it tended to be negatively related. The AA-substitution site of the most immunogenic non-ABO/D antigen, K, had the least B-cell epitope features.
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Affiliation(s)
- John G Howe
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Gary Stack
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.,Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Service, VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, Connecticut, USA
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19
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Akbari E, Ajdary S, Ardakani EM, Agi E, Milani A, Seyedinkhorasani M, Khalaj V, Bolhassani A. Immunopotentiation by linking Hsp70 T-cell epitopes to Gag-Pol-Env-Nef-Rev multiepitope construct and increased IFN-gamma secretion in infected lymphocytes. Pathog Dis 2022; 80:6608937. [PMID: 35704612 DOI: 10.1093/femspd/ftac021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/24/2022] [Revised: 06/03/2022] [Accepted: 06/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Therapeutic human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccines can boost the anti-HIV host immunity to control viral replication and eliminate viral reservoirs in the absence of anti-retroviral therapy. In this study, two computationally designed multiepitope Gag-Pol-Env-Nef-Rev and Hsp70-Gag-Pol-Env-Nef-Rev constructs harboring immunogenic and highly conserved HIV T cell epitopes were generated in E. coli as polypeptide vaccine candidates. Furthermore, the multiepitope gag-pol-env-nef-rev and hsp70-gag-pol-env-nef-rev DNA vaccine constructs were prepared and complexed with MPG cell-penetrating peptide. The immunogenicity of the multiepitope constructs were evaluated using the homologous and heterologous prime/boost strategies in mice. Moreover, the secretion of IFN-γ was assessed in infected lymphocytes in vitro. Our data showed that the homologous polypeptide regimens could significantly induce a mixture of IgG1 and IgG2a antibody responses, activate T cells to secret IFN-γ, IL-5, IL-10, and generate Granzyme B. Moreover, IFN-γ secretion was significantly enhanced in single-cycle replicable (SCR) HIV-1 virions-infected splenocytes in these groups compared to uninfected splenocytes. The linkage of heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) epitopes to Gag-Pol-Env-Nef-Rev polypeptide in the homologous regimen increased significantly cytokines and Granzyme B levels, and IFN-γ secretion in virions-infected splenocytes. Briefly, both designed constructs in the homologous regimens can be used as a promising vaccine candidate against HIV infection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elahe Akbari
- Department of Hepatitis and AIDS, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran.,Department of Medical Biotechnology, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Soheila Ajdary
- Department of Immunology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | | | - Elnaz Agi
- Iranian Comprehensive Hemophilia Care Center, Tehran, Iran
| | - Alireza Milani
- Department of Hepatitis and AIDS, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | | | - Vahid Khalaj
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, Biotechnology Research Center, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
| | - Azam Bolhassani
- Department of Hepatitis and AIDS, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran
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20
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Almalki S, Beigh S, Akhter N, Alharbi RA. In silico epitope-based vaccine design against influenza a neuraminidase protein: Computational analysis established on B- and T-cell epitope predictions. Saudi J Biol Sci 2022; 29:103283. [PMID: 35574284 PMCID: PMC9095894 DOI: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2022.103283] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2021] [Revised: 03/18/2022] [Accepted: 04/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Objective Influenza A virus belongs to the most studied virus and its mutant initiates epidemic and pandemics outbreaks. Inoculation is the significant foundation to diminish the risk of infection. To prevent an incidence of influenza from the transmission, various practical approaches require more advancement and progress. More efforts and research must take in front to enhance vaccine efficacy. Methods The present research emphasizes the development and expansion of a universal vaccine for the influenza virus. Research focuses on vaccine design with high efficacy. In this study, numerous computational approaches were used, covering a wide range of elements and ideas in bioinformatics methodology. Various B and T-cell epitopic peptides derived from the Neuraminidase protein N1 are recognized by these approaches. With the implementation of numerous obtained databases and bioinformatics tools, the different immune framework methods of the conserved sequences of N1 neuraminidase were analyzed. NCBI databases were employed to retrieve amino acid sequences. The antigenic nature of the neuraminidase sequence was achieved by the VaxiJen server and Kolaskar and Tongaonkar method. After screening of various B and T cell epitopes, one efficient peptide each from B cell epitope and T cell epitopes was assessed for their antigenic determinant vaccine efficacy. Identical two B cell epitopes were recognized from the N1 protein when analyzed using B-cell epitope prediction servers. The detailed examination of amino acid sequences for interpretation of B and T cell epitopes was achieved with the help of the ABCPred and Immune Epitope Database. Results Computational immunology via immunoinformatic study exhibited RPNDKTG as having its high conservancy efficiency and demonstrated as a good antigenic, accessible surface hydrophilic B-cell epitope. Among T cell epitope analysis, YVNISNTNF was selected for being a conserved epitope. T cell epitope was also analyzed for its allergenicity and cytotoxicity evaluation. YVNISNTNF epitope was found to be a non-allergen and not toxic for cells as well. This T-cell epitope with maximum world populace coverages was scrutinized for its association with the HLA-DRB1*0401 molecule. Results from docking simulation analyses showed YVNISNTNF having lower binding energy, the radius of gyration (Rg), RMSD values, and RMSE values which make the protein structure more stable and increase its ability to become an epitopic peptide for influenza virus vaccination. Conclusions We propose that this epitope analysis may be successfully used as a measurement tool for the robustness of an antigen-antibody reaction between mutant strains in the annual design of the influenza vaccine.
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Key Words
- Antigen-antibody reaction
- Docking simulation
- Epitope prediction
- H1N1, Influenza A
- HA, Hemagglutinin
- HAE, Human airway epithelial
- HCP, Health care personal
- HLA, Human leukocyte antigen
- IC50, Half maximal inhibitory concentration
- IEDB, Immune Epitope Database
- Influenza
- KS, Karplus & Schulz flexibility
- MD, Molecular dynamics
- MMPBSA, Molecular Mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area
- NA, Neuraminidase
- RMSD, Root means square deviation
- RMSF, Root mean square fluctuation
- Rg, Radius of gyration
- SARS, Severe acute respiratory syndrome
- Toxicity
- pdm09, Pandemic Disease Mexico 2009
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Affiliation(s)
- Shaia Almalki
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Albaha University, Albaha 65431, Saudi Arabia
| | - Saba Beigh
- Department of Public Health, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Albaha University, Albaha 65431, Saudi Arabia
| | - Naseem Akhter
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Albaha University, Albaha 65431, Saudi Arabia
| | - Read A. Alharbi
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Albaha University, Albaha 65431, Saudi Arabia
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21
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La Marca AF, Lopes RDS, Lotufo ADP, Bartholomeu DC, Minussi CR. BepFAMN: A Method for Linear B-Cell Epitope Predictions Based on Fuzzy-ARTMAP Artificial Neural Network. SENSORS 2022; 22:s22114027. [PMID: 35684648 PMCID: PMC9185646 DOI: 10.3390/s22114027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2022] [Revised: 05/22/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 12/02/2022]
Abstract
The public health system is extremely dependent on the use of vaccines to immunize the population from a series of infectious and dangerous diseases, preventing the system from collapsing and millions of people dying every year. However, to develop these vaccines and effectively monitor these diseases, it is necessary to use accurate diagnostic methods capable of identifying highly immunogenic regions within a given pathogenic protein. Existing experimental methods are expensive, time-consuming, and require arduous laboratory work, as they require the screening of a large number of potential candidate epitopes, making the methods extremely laborious, especially for application to larger microorganisms. In the last decades, researchers have developed in silico prediction methods, based on machine learning, to identify these markers, to drastically reduce the list of potential candidate epitopes for experimental tests, and, consequently, to reduce the laborious task associated with their mapping. Despite these efforts, the tools and methods still have low accuracy, slow diagnosis, and offline training. Thus, we develop a method to predict B-cell linear epitopes which are based on a Fuzzy-ARTMAP neural network architecture, called BepFAMN (B Epitope Prediction Fuzzy ARTMAP Artificial Neural Network). This was trained using a linear averaging scheme on 15 properties that include an amino acid ratio scale and a set of 14 physicochemical scales. The database used was obtained from the IEDB website, from which the amino acid sequences with the annotations of their positive and negative epitopes were taken. To train and validate the knowledge models, five-fold cross-validation and competition techniques were used. The BepiPred-2.0 database, an independent database, was used for the tests. In our experiment, the validation dataset reached sensitivity = 91.50%, specificity = 91.49%, accuracy = 91.49%, MCC = 0.83, and an area under the curve (AUC) ROC of approximately 0.9289. The result in the testing dataset achieves a significant improvement, with sensitivity = 81.87%, specificity = 74.75%, accuracy = 78.27%, MCC = 0.56, and AOC = 0.7831. These achieved values demonstrate that BepFAMN outperforms all other linear B-cell epitope prediction tools currently used. In addition, the architecture provides mechanisms for online training, which allow the user to find a new B-cell linear epitope, and to improve the model without need to re-train itself with the whole dataset. This fact contributes to a considerable reduction in the number of potential linear epitopes to be experimentally validated, reducing laboratory time and accelerating the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines, and immunotherapeutic approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anthony F. La Marca
- Electrical Engineering Department, UNESP—São Paulo State University, Av. Brasil 56, Ilha Solteira 15385-000, Brazil; (A.F.L.M.); (A.D.P.L.)
| | - Robson da S. Lopes
- Computer Science Course, UFMT—Mato Grosso Federal University, Av. Valdon Varjão, 6390 Setor Industrial, Barra do Garças 78605-091, Brazil;
| | - Anna Diva P. Lotufo
- Electrical Engineering Department, UNESP—São Paulo State University, Av. Brasil 56, Ilha Solteira 15385-000, Brazil; (A.F.L.M.); (A.D.P.L.)
| | - Daniella C. Bartholomeu
- Parasite Immunology and Genomics Laboratory, Institute of Biological Sciences, Minas Gerais Federal University, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil;
| | - Carlos R. Minussi
- Electrical Engineering Department, UNESP—São Paulo State University, Av. Brasil 56, Ilha Solteira 15385-000, Brazil; (A.F.L.M.); (A.D.P.L.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +55-1837431225
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22
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Yurina V, Adianingsih OR. Predicting epitopes for vaccine development using bioinformatics tools. Ther Adv Vaccines Immunother 2022; 10:25151355221100218. [PMID: 35647486 PMCID: PMC9130818 DOI: 10.1177/25151355221100218] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/21/2022] [Accepted: 04/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Epitope-based DNA vaccine development is one application of bioinformatics or
in silico studies, that is, computational methods,
including mathematical, chemical, and biological approaches, which are widely
used in drug development. Many in silico studies have been
conducted to analyze the efficacy, safety, toxicity effects, and interactions of
drugs. In the vaccine design process, in silico studies are
performed to predict epitopes that could trigger T-cell and B-cell reactions
that would produce both cellular and humoral immune responses. Immunoinformatics
is the branch of bioinformatics used to study the relationship between immune
responses and predicted epitopes. Progress in immunoinformatics has been rapid
and has led to the development of a variety of tools that are used for the
prediction of epitopes recognized by B cells or T cells as well as the antigenic
responses. However, the in silico approach to vaccine design is
still relatively new; thus, this review is aimed at increasing understanding of
the importance of in silico studies in the design of vaccines
and thereby facilitating future research in this field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Yurina
- Department of Pharmacy, Medical Faculty, Universitas Brawijaya, Jalan Veteran, Malang 65145, East Java, Indonesia
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23
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Akbar R, Bashour H, Rawat P, Robert PA, Smorodina E, Cotet TS, Flem-Karlsen K, Frank R, Mehta BB, Vu MH, Zengin T, Gutierrez-Marcos J, Lund-Johansen F, Andersen JT, Greiff V. Progress and challenges for the machine learning-based design of fit-for-purpose monoclonal antibodies. MAbs 2022; 14:2008790. [PMID: 35293269 PMCID: PMC8928824 DOI: 10.1080/19420862.2021.2008790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2021] [Revised: 11/04/2021] [Accepted: 11/17/2021] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Although the therapeutic efficacy and commercial success of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are tremendous, the design and discovery of new candidates remain a time and cost-intensive endeavor. In this regard, progress in the generation of data describing antigen binding and developability, computational methodology, and artificial intelligence may pave the way for a new era of in silico on-demand immunotherapeutics design and discovery. Here, we argue that the main necessary machine learning (ML) components for an in silico mAb sequence generator are: understanding of the rules of mAb-antigen binding, capacity to modularly combine mAb design parameters, and algorithms for unconstrained parameter-driven in silico mAb sequence synthesis. We review the current progress toward the realization of these necessary components and discuss the challenges that must be overcome to allow the on-demand ML-based discovery and design of fit-for-purpose mAb therapeutic candidates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rahmad Akbar
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
| | - Habib Bashour
- School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
| | - Puneet Rawat
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
- Department of Biotechnology, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
| | - Philippe A. Robert
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
| | - Eva Smorodina
- Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
| | | | - Karine Flem-Karlsen
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
- Institute of Clinical Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Norway
| | - Robert Frank
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
| | - Brij Bhushan Mehta
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
| | - Mai Ha Vu
- Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies, University of Oslo, Norway
| | - Talip Zengin
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
- Department of Bioinformatics, Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Turkey
| | | | | | - Jan Terje Andersen
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
- Institute of Clinical Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Norway
| | - Victor Greiff
- Department of Immunology, University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
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Vilela Rodrigues TC, Jaiswal AK, Lemes MR, da Silva MV, Sales-Campos H, Alcântara LCJ, Tosta SFDO, Kato RB, Alzahrani KJ, Barh D, Azevedo VADC, Tiwari S, Soares SDC. An immunoinformatics-based designed multi-epitope candidate vaccine (mpme-VAC/STV-1) against Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Comput Biol Med 2021; 142:105194. [PMID: 35007945 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2021.105194] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2021] [Revised: 12/28/2021] [Accepted: 12/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Pneumonia is a serious global health problem that accounts for over one million deaths annually. Among the main microorganisms causing pneumonia, Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the most common ones for which a vaccine is immediately required. In this context, a multi-epitope vaccine against this pathogen could be the best option that can induce effective immune response avoiding any serious adverse reactions. In this study, using an immunoinformatics approach we have designed a multi-epitope vaccine (mpme-VAC/STV-1) against M. pneumoniae. Our designed mpme-VAC/STV-1 is constructed using CTL (cytotoxic T lymphocyte), HTL (Helper T lymphocyte), and B-cell epitopes. These epitopes are selected from the core proteins of 88 M. pneumoniae genomes that were previously identified through reverse vaccinology approaches. The epitopes were filtered according to their immunogenicity, population coverage, and several other criteria. Sixteen CTL/B- and thirteen HTL/B- epitopes that belong to 5 core proteins were combined together through peptide linkers to develop the mpme-VAC/STV-1. The heat-labile enterotoxin from E. coli was used as an adjuvant. The designed mpme-VAC/STV-1 is predicted to be stable, non-toxic, non-allergenic, non-host homologous, and with required antigenic and immunogenic properties. Docking and molecular dynamic simulation of mpme-VAC/STV-1 shows that it can stimulate TLR2 pathway mediated immunogenic reactions. In silico cloning of mpme-VAC/STV-1 in an expression vector also shows positive results. Finally, the mpme-VAC/STV-1 also shows promising efficacy in immune simulation tests. Therefore, our constructed mpme-VAC/STV-1 could be a safe and effective multi-epitope vaccine for immunization against pneumonia. However, it requires further experimental and clinical validations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thaís Cristina Vilela Rodrigues
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Arun Kumar Jaiswal
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Marcela Rezende Lemes
- Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Parasitology, Institute of Biological Science and Natural Sciences, Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM), Uberaba, 38025-180, MG, Brazil
| | - Marcos Vinícius da Silva
- Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Parasitology, Institute of Biological Science and Natural Sciences, Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM), Uberaba, 38025-180, MG, Brazil
| | - Helioswilton Sales-Campos
- Institute of Tropical Pathology and Public Health, Federal University of Goias (UFG), Goiânia, 74605-050, GO, Goiás, Brazil
| | | | - Sthephane Fraga de Oliveira Tosta
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Rodrigo Bentes Kato
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Khalid J Alzahrani
- Department of Clinical Laboratories Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif, 21944, Saudi Arabia
| | - Debmalya Barh
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil; Centre for Genomics and Applied Gene Technology, Institute of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology (IIOAB), Nonakuri, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, 721172, India
| | - Vasco Ariston de Carvalho Azevedo
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
| | - Sandeep Tiwari
- Programa PG Em Bioinformática, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
| | - Siomar de Castro Soares
- Department of Immunology, Microbiology and Parasitology, Institute of Biological Science and Natural Sciences, Federal University of Triângulo Mineiro (UFTM), Uberaba, 38025-180, MG, Brazil.
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Development of Multi-epitope Subunit Vaccine Against Pseudomonas aeruginosa Using OprF/OprI and PopB Proteins. ARCHIVES OF CLINICAL INFECTIOUS DISEASES 2021. [DOI: 10.5812/archcid.118243] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Background: The emerging problem of antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a global health concern; hence, revealing innovative therapeutic approaches (such as designing an immunogenic vaccine candidate) is needed. There is no evidence of the availability of an effective vaccine that can combat the infection caused by this microorganism. Objectives: This research was conducted to develop a potential chimeric vaccine against P. aeruginosa using reverse vaccinology approaches. Methods: The present vaccine candidate comprised outer membrane protein F and I (OprF/OprI) and PopB with appropriate linkers. After applying meticulous immune-informatics investigation, the multi-epitope vaccine was created, including helper T lymphocyte (HTL), cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL), interferon gamma (IFN-γ), and interleukin 4 (IL-4) epitopes. Then, the physicochemical characteristics, allergenicity, toxicity, and antigenicity were analyzed. After investigating the secondary structure, the tertiary structure (3D) model was generated, refined, and validated via computational methods. Besides, the strong protein-ligand interaction and stability between the vaccine candidate and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) were determined via molecular docking and dynamics analyses. Moreover, in silico cloning accompanied by pET-22b (+) was used to achieve high translation efficiency. Results: Our results presumed that the chimeric-designed vaccine was thermostable and contained optimal physicochemical properties. This vaccine candidate was nontoxic and highly soluble and had stable protein and TLR4 interaction, adequately overexpressed in Escherichia coli. Overall, it could induce immune responses and repress this microorganism. Conclusions: Therefore, to inhibit Pseudomonas infections experimentally, the efficacy and safety of the vaccine design need to be validated.
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Ras-Carmona A, Pelaez-Prestel HF, Lafuente EM, Reche PA. BCEPS: A Web Server to Predict Linear B Cell Epitopes with Enhanced Immunogenicity and Cross-Reactivity. Cells 2021; 10:cells10102744. [PMID: 34685724 PMCID: PMC8534968 DOI: 10.3390/cells10102744] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2021] [Revised: 10/11/2021] [Accepted: 10/12/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Prediction of linear B cell epitopes is of interest for the production of antigen-specific antibodies and the design of peptide-based vaccines. Here, we present BCEPS, a web server for predicting linear B cell epitopes tailored to select epitopes that are immunogenic and capable of inducing cross-reactive antibodies with native antigens. BCEPS implements various machine learning models trained on a dataset including 555 linearized conformational B cell epitopes that were mined from antibody–antigen protein structures. The best performing model, based on a support vector machine, reached an accuracy of 75.38% ± 5.02. In an independent dataset consisting of B cell epitopes retrieved from the Immune Epitope Database (IEDB), this model achieved an accuracy of 67.05%. In BCEPS, predicted epitopes can be ranked according to properties such as flexibility, accessibility and hydrophilicity, and with regard to immunogenicity, as judged by their predicted presentation by MHC II molecules. BCEPS also detects if predicted epitopes are located in ectodomains of membrane proteins and if they possess N-glycosylation sites hindering antibody recognition. Finally, we exemplified the use of BCEPS in the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, showing that it can identify B cell epitopes targeted by neutralizing antibodies.
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Pasharawipas T. Different Aspects Concerning Viral Infection and the Role of MHC Molecules in Viral Prevention. Open Microbiol J 2021. [DOI: 10.2174/1874285802115010072] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules play a crucial role in inducing an adaptive immune response. T-cell epitopes require compatible MHC molecules to form MHC-peptide Complexes (pMHC) that activate the T-cell Receptors (TCR) of T-lymphocyte clones. MHCs are polymorphic molecules with wide varieties of gene alleles. There are two classes of MHC molecules, class I and II. Both classes have three classical loci HLA-A, -B, and –C are present in class I and HLA-DP, -DQ, and -DR in class II. To induce a compatible T-lymphocyte clone, the T-cell epitope requires the association of the compatible MHC molecule to form pMHC. Each MHC variant possesses a different groove that is capable of binding a different range of antigenic epitopes. Without the compatible MHC molecule, a T cell clone cannot be activated by a particular viral epitope. With the aim of preventing viral transmission, the efficiency of a viral vaccine is related to the existence of specific MHC alleles in the individual. This article proposes the roles of the MHC molecule to prevent viral infection. In addition, the association of the viral receptor molecule with the viral infection will also be discussed.
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Hosseini SS, Aghaiypour Kolyani K, Rafiei Tabatabaei R, Goudarzi H, Akhavan Sepahi A, Salemi M. In silico prediction of B and T cell epitopes based on NDV fusion protein for vaccine development against Newcastle disease virus. VETERINARY RESEARCH FORUM : AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL 2021; 12:157-165. [PMID: 34345381 PMCID: PMC8328245 DOI: 10.30466/vrf.2019.98625.2351] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2018] [Accepted: 05/07/2019] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Newcastle disease (ND) is known as the most common diseases of economic importance worldwide. Vaccination against virulent strains of Newcastle disease virus (NDV) has failed during some outbreaks. Here, we aimed to assess the epitopes of NDV fusion protein as targets for a peptide-based vaccine. To explore the most antigenic epitopes on the F protein, we retrieved virulent strains of genotype VII from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Linear and conformational B-cell epitopes were identified. Moreover, T-cell epitopes with high and moderate binding affinities to human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and class II alleles were predicted using bioinformatics tools. Subsequently, the overlapped epitopes of B-cell and MHC class I and MHC class II were determined. To validate our predictions, the best epitopes were docked, to chicken MHC class I (B-F) alleles using the HADDOCK flexible docking server. Seven ‘high ranked epitopes’ were identified. Among them, ‘LYCTRIVTF’ and ‘MRATYLETL’ showed the highest scores. The other five epitopes including LSGEFDATY, LTTPPYMALK, LYLTELTTV, DCIKITQQV and SIAATNEAV obtained very encouraging results as well. SIAATNEAV had been recognized as a neutralizing epitope of F protein using monoclonal antibodies before. Taken together, our results demonstrated that the identified epitopes needed to be tested by in vitro and in vivo experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Khosrow Aghaiypour Kolyani
- Department of Genomics and Genetic Engineering, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute (RVSRI), Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran
| | - Robab Rafiei Tabatabaei
- Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran North Branch, Tehran, Iran
| | - Hossein Goudarzi
- Central Laboratory Department, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute Agricultural Research, AREEO, Karaj, Iran
| | - Abbas Akhavan Sepahi
- Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Tehran North Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
| | - Maryam Salemi
- Department of Genomics and Genetic Engineering, Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute (RVSRI), Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Karaj, Iran
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Conformational epitope matching and prediction based on protein surface spiral features. BMC Genomics 2021; 22:116. [PMID: 34058977 PMCID: PMC8165135 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-020-07303-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2020] [Accepted: 12/04/2020] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Background A conformational epitope (CE) is composed of neighboring amino acid residues located on an antigenic protein surface structure. CEs bind their complementary paratopes in B-cell receptors and/or antibodies. An effective and efficient prediction tool for CE analysis is critical for the development of immunology-related applications, such as vaccine design and disease diagnosis. Results We propose a novel method consisting of two sequential modules: matching and prediction. The matching module includes two main approaches. The first approach is a complete sequence search (CSS) that applies BLAST to align the sequence with all known antigen sequences. Fragments with high epitope sequence identities are identified and the predicted residues are annotated on the query structure. The second approach is a spiral vector search (SVS) that adopts a novel surface spiral feature vector for large-scale surface patch detection when queried against a comprehensive epitope database. The prediction module also contains two proposed subsystems. The first system is based on knowledge-based energy and geometrical neighboring residue contents, and the second system adopts combinatorial features, including amino acid contents and physicochemical characteristics, to formulate corresponding geometric spiral vectors and compare them with all spiral vectors from known CEs. An integrated testing dataset was generated for method evaluation, and our two searching methods effectively identified all epitope regions. The prediction results show that our proposed method outperforms previously published systems in terms of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and accuracy. Conclusions The proposed method significantly improves the performance of traditional epitope prediction. Matching followed by prediction is an efficient and effective approach compared to predicting directly on specific surfaces containing antigenic characteristics.
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Chizari M, Fani-Kheshti S, Taeb J, Farajollahi MM, Mohsenzadegan M. The Anti-Proliferative Effect of a Newly-Produced Anti-PSCA-Peptide Antibody by Multiple Bioinformatics Tools, on Prostate Cancer Cells. Recent Pat Anticancer Drug Discov 2021; 16:73-83. [PMID: 33176663 DOI: 10.2174/1574892815999201110212411] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2020] [Revised: 10/08/2020] [Accepted: 10/12/2020] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Prostate Stem Cell Antigen (PSCA) is a small cell surface protein, overexpressed in 90% of prostate cancers. Determination of epitopes that elicit an appropriate response to the antibody generation is vital for diagnostic and immunotherapeutic purposes for prostate cancer treatment. Presently, bioinformatics B-cell prediction tools can predict the location of epitopes, which is uncomplicated, faster, and more cost-effective than experimental methods. OBJECTIVE We aimed to predict a novel linear peptide for Prostate Stem Cell Antigen (PSCA) protein in order to generate anti-PSCA-peptide (p) antibody and to investigate its effect on prostate cancer cells. METHODS In the current study, a novel linear peptide for PSCA was predicted using in silico methods that utilize a set of linear B-cell epitope prediction tools. Polyclonal antibody (anti-PSCA-p antibody "Patent No. 99318") against PSCA peptide was generated. The antibody reactivity was determined by the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and its specificity by immunocytochemistry (ICC), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and Western Blotting (WB) assays. The effect of the anti-PSCA-p antibody on PSCA-expressing prostate cancer cell line was assessed by Methylthiazolyldiphenyl- Tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. RESULTS New peptide-fragment of PSCA sequence as "N-CVDDSQDYYVGKKN-C" (PSCA-p) was selected and synthesized. The anti-PSCA-p antibody against the PSCA-p showed immunoreactivity with PSCA-p specifically bound to PC-3 cells. Also, the anti-PSCA-p antibody strongly stained the prostate cancer tissues as compared to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) and normal tissues (P < 0.001). As the degree of malignancy increased, the staining intensity was also elevated in prostate cancer tissue (P < 0.001). Interestingly, the anti-PSCA-p antibody showed anti-proliferative effects on PC-3 cells (31%) with no growth inhibition effect on PSCA-negative cells. CONCLUSION In this study, we developed a new peptide sequence (PSCA-p) of PSCA. The PSCA-p targeting by anti-PSCA-p antibody inhibited the proliferation of prostate cancer cells, suggesting the potential of PSCA-p immunotherapy for future prostate cancer studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Milad Chizari
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Sajad Fani-Kheshti
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Jaleh Taeb
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Mohammad M Farajollahi
- Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
| | - Monireh Mohsenzadegan
- Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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31
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Hou Q, Stringer B, Waury K, Capel H, Haydarlou R, Xue F, Abeln S, Heringa J, Feenstra KA. SeRenDIP-CE: Sequence-based Interface Prediction for Conformational Epitopes. Bioinformatics 2021; 37:3421-3427. [PMID: 33974039 PMCID: PMC8136078 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab321] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/19/2020] [Revised: 03/26/2021] [Accepted: 04/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation Antibodies play an important role in clinical research and biotechnology, with their specificity determined by the interaction with the antigen’s epitope region, as a special type of protein–protein interaction (PPI) interface. The ubiquitous availability of sequence data, allows us to predict epitopes from sequence in order to focus time-consuming wet-lab experiments toward the most promising epitope regions. Here, we extend our previously developed sequence-based predictors for homodimer and heterodimer PPI interfaces to predict epitope residues that have the potential to bind an antibody. Results We collected and curated a high quality epitope dataset from the SAbDab database. Our generic PPI heterodimer predictor obtained an AUC-ROC of 0.666 when evaluated on the epitope test set. We then trained a random forest model specifically on the epitope dataset, reaching AUC 0.694. Further training on the combined heterodimer and epitope datasets, improves our final predictor to AUC 0.703 on the epitope test set. This is better than the best state-of-the-art sequence-based epitope predictor BepiPred-2.0. On one solved antibody–antigen structure of the COVID19 virus spike receptor binding domain, our predictor reaches AUC 0.778. We added the SeRenDIP-CE Conformational Epitope predictors to our webserver, which is simple to use and only requires a single antigen sequence as input, which will help make the method immediately applicable in a wide range of biomedical and biomolecular research. Availability and implementation Webserver, source code and datasets at www.ibi.vu.nl/programs/serendipwww/. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qingzhen Hou
- Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Shandong 250002, P. R. China.,National institute of health data science of China, Shandong University, Shandong 250002, P. R. China
| | - Bas Stringer
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands
| | - Katharina Waury
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands
| | - Henriette Capel
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands
| | - Reza Haydarlou
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands
| | - Fuzhong Xue
- Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Shandong 250002, P. R. China.,National institute of health data science of China, Shandong University, Shandong 250002, P. R. China
| | - Sanne Abeln
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands
| | - Jaap Heringa
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands.,AIMMS - Amsterdam Institute for Molecules Medicines and Systems, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
| | - K Anton Feenstra
- IBIVU - Center for Integrative Bioinformatics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081HV, The Netherlands.,AIMMS - Amsterdam Institute for Molecules Medicines and Systems, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
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Galanis KA, Nastou KC, Papandreou NC, Petichakis GN, Pigis DG, Iconomidou VA. Linear B-Cell Epitope Prediction for In Silico Vaccine Design: A Performance Review of Methods Available via Command-Line Interface. Int J Mol Sci 2021; 22:3210. [PMID: 33809918 PMCID: PMC8004178 DOI: 10.3390/ijms22063210] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/12/2021] [Revised: 03/15/2021] [Accepted: 03/19/2021] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Linear B-cell epitope prediction research has received a steadily growing interest ever since the first method was developed in 1981. B-cell epitope identification with the help of an accurate prediction method can lead to an overall faster and cheaper vaccine design process, a crucial necessity in the COVID-19 era. Consequently, several B-cell epitope prediction methods have been developed over the past few decades, but without significant success. In this study, we review the current performance and methodology of some of the most widely used linear B-cell epitope predictors which are available via a command-line interface, namely, BcePred, BepiPred, ABCpred, COBEpro, SVMTriP, LBtope, and LBEEP. Additionally, we attempted to remedy performance issues of the individual methods by developing a consensus classifier, which combines the separate predictions of these methods into a single output, accelerating the epitope-based vaccine design. While the method comparison was performed with some necessary caveats and individual methods might perform much better for specialized datasets, we hope that this update in performance can aid researchers towards the choice of a predictor, for the development of biomedical applications such as designed vaccines, diagnostic kits, immunotherapeutics, immunodiagnostic tests, antibody production, and disease diagnosis and therapy.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | - Vassiliki A. Iconomidou
- Section of Cell Biology and Biophysics, Department of Biology, School of Sciences, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15701 Athens, Greece; (K.A.G.); (K.C.N.); (N.C.P.); (G.N.P.); (D.G.P.)
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Jaiswal G, Yaduvanshi S, Kumar V. A potential peptide inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 S and human ACE2 complex. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2021; 40:6671-6681. [PMID: 33645443 PMCID: PMC7938657 DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2021.1889665] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
The disease COVID-19 has caused heavy socio-economic burden and there is immediate need to control it. The disease is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. The viral entry into human cell depends on the attachment of spike (S) protein via its receptor binding domain (RBD) to human cell receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2). Thus, blocking the virus attachment to hACE2 could serve as potential therapeutics for viral infection. We have designed a peptide inhibitor (ΔABP-α2) targeting the RBD of S protein using in-silico approach. Docking studies and computed affinities suggested that peptide inhibitor binds at the RBD with ∼95-fold higher affinity than hACE2. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation confirms the stable binding of inhibitor to hACE2. Immunoinformatics studies suggest non-immunogenic and non-toxic nature of peptide. Thus, the proposed peptide could serve as potential blocker for viral attachment. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma
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Affiliation(s)
- Grijesh Jaiswal
- Amity Institute of Molecular Medicine and Stem Cell Research (AIMMSCR), Amity University, Noida, India
| | - Shivani Yaduvanshi
- Amity Institute of Molecular Medicine and Stem Cell Research (AIMMSCR), Amity University, Noida, India
| | - Veerendra Kumar
- Amity Institute of Molecular Medicine and Stem Cell Research (AIMMSCR), Amity University, Noida, India
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Sabzehali F, Rahimi H, Goudarzi H, Goudarzi M, Yoosefi Izad MH, Salimi Chirani A, Jalali SA, Faghihloo E. Functional engineering of OprF-OprI-PopB as a chimeric immunogen and its cross-protective evaluation with GM-CSF against Pseudomonas aeruginosa: A comprehensive immunoinformatics evaluation. INFORMATICS IN MEDICINE UNLOCKED 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.imu.2021.100673] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
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35
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Zinsli LV, Stierlin N, Loessner MJ, Schmelcher M. Deimmunization of protein therapeutics - Recent advances in experimental and computational epitope prediction and deletion. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 2020; 19:315-329. [PMID: 33425259 PMCID: PMC7779837 DOI: 10.1016/j.csbj.2020.12.024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/02/2020] [Revised: 12/15/2020] [Accepted: 12/16/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Biotherapeutics, and antimicrobial proteins in particular, are of increasing interest for human medicine. An important challenge in the development of such therapeutics is their potential immunogenicity, which can induce production of anti-drug-antibodies, resulting in altered pharmacokinetics, reduced efficacy, and potentially severe anaphylactic or hypersensitivity reactions. For this reason, the development and application of effective deimmunization methods for protein drugs is of utmost importance. Deimmunization may be achieved by unspecific shielding approaches, which include PEGylation, fusion to polypeptides (e.g., XTEN or PAS), reductive methylation, glycosylation, and polysialylation. Alternatively, the identification of epitopes for T cells or B cells and their subsequent deletion through site-directed mutagenesis represent promising deimmunization strategies and can be accomplished through either experimental or computational approaches. This review highlights the most recent advances and current challenges in the deimmunization of protein therapeutics, with a special focus on computational epitope prediction and deletion tools.
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Key Words
- ABR, Antigen-binding region
- ADA, Anti-drug antibody
- ANN, Artificial neural network
- APC, Antigen-presenting cell
- Anti-drug-antibody
- B cell epitope
- BCR, B cell receptor
- Bab, Binding antibody
- CDR, Complementarity determining region
- CRISPR, Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats
- DC, Dendritic cell
- ELP, Elastin-like polypeptide
- EPO, Erythropoietin
- ER, Endoplasmatic reticulum
- GLK, Gelatin-like protein
- HAP, Homo-amino-acid polymer
- HLA, Human leukocyte antigen
- HMM, Hidden Markov model
- IL, Interleukin
- Ig, Immunoglobulin
- Immunogenicity
- LPS, Lipopolysaccharide
- MHC, Major histocompatibility complex
- NMR, Nuclear magnetic resonance
- Nab, Neutralizing antibody
- PAMP, Pathogen-associated molecular pattern
- PAS, Polypeptide composed of proline, alanine, and/or serine
- PBMC, Peripheral blood mononuclear cell
- PD, Pharmacodynamics
- PEG, Polyethylene glycol
- PK, Pharmacokinetics
- PRR, Pattern recognition receptor
- PSA, Sialic acid polymers
- Protein therapeutic
- RNN, Recurrent artificial neural network
- SVM, Support vector machine
- T cell epitope
- TAP, Transporter associated with antigen processing
- TCR, T cell receptor
- TLR, Toll-like receptor
- XTEN, “Xtended” recombinant polypeptide
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Affiliation(s)
- Léa V. Zinsli
- Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Noël Stierlin
- Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Martin J. Loessner
- Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Mathias Schmelcher
- Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Aruleba RT, Adekiya TA, Molefe PF, Ikwegbue PC, Oyinloye BE, Kappo AP. Insights into functional amino acids of ULBP2 as potential immunogens against cancer. SCIENTIFIC AFRICAN 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.sciaf.2020.e00581] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
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Lon JR, Bai Y, Zhong B, Cai F, Du H. Prediction and evolution of B cell epitopes of surface protein in SARS-CoV-2. Virol J 2020; 17:165. [PMID: 33121513 PMCID: PMC7594941 DOI: 10.1186/s12985-020-01437-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2020] [Accepted: 10/20/2020] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND In order to obtain antibodies that recognize natural proteins, it is possible to predict the antigenic determinants of natural proteins, which are eventually embodied as polypeptides. The polypeptides can be coupled with corresponding vectors to stimulate the immune system to produce corresponding antibodies, which is also a simple and effective vaccine development method. The discovery of epitopes is helpful to the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. METHODS The analyses were related to epitopes on 3 proteins, including spike (S), envelope (E) and membrane (M) proteins, which are located on the lipid envelope of the SARS-CoV-2. Based on the NCBI Reference Sequence: NC_045512.2, the conformational and linear B cell epitopes of the surface protein were predicted separately by various prediction methods. Furthermore, the conservation of the epitopes, the adaptability and other evolutionary characteristics were also analyzed, the sequences of the whole genome of SARS-CoV-2 were obtained from the GISAID. RESULTS 7 epitopes were predicted, including 6 linear epitopes and 1 conformational epitope. One of the linear and one of the conformational consist of identical sequence, but represent different forms of epitopes. It is worth mentioning that all 6 identified epitopes were conserved in nearly 3500 SARS-CoV-2 genomes, showing that it is helpful to obtain stable and long-acting epitopes under the condition of high frequency of amino acid mutation, which deserved further study at the experiment level. CONCLUSION The findings would facilitate the vaccine development, had the potential to be directly applied on the prevention in this disease, but also have the potential to prevent the possible threats caused by other types of coronavirus.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jerome Rumdon Lon
- School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China
| | - Yunmeng Bai
- School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China
| | - Bingxu Zhong
- School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China
| | - Fuqiang Cai
- School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China
| | - Hongli Du
- School of Biology and Biological Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, China.
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Yurina V. Coronavirus epitope prediction from highly conserved region of spike protein. Clin Exp Vaccine Res 2020; 9:169-173. [PMID: 32864374 PMCID: PMC7445319 DOI: 10.7774/cevr.2020.9.2.169] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2020] [Revised: 07/23/2020] [Accepted: 07/28/2020] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
Purpose The aim of this research was to predict the epitope for coronavirus family spike protein. Coronavirus family is highly evolved viruses which cause several outbreaks in the past decades. Therefore, it is crucial to design a global vaccine candidate to prevent the coronavirus outbreak in the future. Materials and Methods The spike protein amino acid sequences from nine coronavirus family were searched in the Uniprot database. The spike protein sequences were aligned using Clustal method. The highly conservatives amino acids were analyzed its B cell linear and continuous epitopes and T cell epitopes. Results From the alignment results it was found that there is a highly conserved region in the extracellular domain of spike protein. With prediction methods from this highly conserved region, B cell and T cell epitopes from spike protein were derived. Conclusion From several different prediction results, B cell epitope and T cell epitope were identified in the highly conserved region thus it is promising to be developed as a coronavirus vaccine candidate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Yurina
- Department of Pharmacy, Medical Faculty, Brawijaya University, Malang, Indonesia
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39
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Panda PK, Arul MN, Patel P, Verma SK, Luo W, Rubahn HG, Mishra YK, Suar M, Ahuja R. Structure-based drug designing and immunoinformatics approach for SARS-CoV-2. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2020; 6:eabb8097. [PMID: 32691011 PMCID: PMC7319274 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abb8097] [Citation(s) in RCA: 118] [Impact Index Per Article: 29.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2020] [Accepted: 05/27/2020] [Indexed: 05/19/2023]
Abstract
The prevalence of respiratory illness caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus associated with multiple organ failures is spreading rapidly because of its contagious human-to-human transmission and inadequate globalhealth care systems. Pharmaceutical repurposing, an effective drug development technique using existing drugs, could shorten development time and reduce costs compared to those of de novo drug discovery. We carried out virtual screening of antiviral compounds targeting the spike glycoprotein (S), main protease (Mpro), and the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD)-angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) complex of SARS-CoV-2. PC786, an antiviral polymerase inhibitor, showed enhanced binding affinity to all the targets. Furthermore, the postfusion conformation of the trimeric S protein RBD with ACE2 revealed conformational changes associated with PC786 drug binding. Exploiting immunoinformatics to identify T cell and B cell epitopes could guide future experimental studies with a higher probability of discovering appropriate vaccine candidates with fewer experiments and higher reliability.
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MESH Headings
- Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2
- Antiviral Agents/pharmacology
- Benzamides
- Benzazepines
- Betacoronavirus/drug effects
- Betacoronavirus/immunology
- Betacoronavirus/metabolism
- Binding Sites
- COVID-19
- Coronavirus 3C Proteases
- Coronavirus Infections/immunology
- Coronavirus Infections/prevention & control
- Coronavirus Infections/virology
- Cysteine Endopeptidases/chemistry
- Cysteine Endopeptidases/immunology
- Cysteine Endopeptidases/metabolism
- Drug Design
- Drug Evaluation, Preclinical
- Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte/drug effects
- Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte/immunology
- Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte/drug effects
- Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte/immunology
- Humans
- Molecular Docking Simulation
- Pandemics/prevention & control
- Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A/chemistry
- Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A/immunology
- Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A/metabolism
- Pneumonia, Viral/immunology
- Pneumonia, Viral/prevention & control
- Pneumonia, Viral/virology
- Protein Binding
- Protein Conformation
- Protein Domains
- Protein Interaction Domains and Motifs
- SARS-CoV-2
- Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/chemistry
- Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/immunology
- Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/metabolism
- Spiro Compounds/pharmacology
- Viral Nonstructural Proteins/chemistry
- Viral Nonstructural Proteins/immunology
- Viral Nonstructural Proteins/metabolism
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Affiliation(s)
- Pritam Kumar Panda
- Condensed Matter Theory Group, Materials Theory Division, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
| | - Murugan Natarajan Arul
- Department of Theoretical Chemistry and Biology, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), AlbaNova University Center, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Paritosh Patel
- School of Biotechnology, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India
| | - Suresh K. Verma
- School of Biotechnology, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India
| | - Wei Luo
- Condensed Matter Theory Group, Materials Theory Division, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
| | | | - Yogendra Kumar Mishra
- Mads Clausen Institute, NanoSYD, University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, DK-6400 Sønderborg, Denmark
| | - Mrutyunjay Suar
- School of Biotechnology, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar 751024, India
| | - Rajeev Ahuja
- Condensed Matter Theory Group, Materials Theory Division, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
- Applied Materials Physics, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
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40
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Chimeric Protein Designed by Genome-Scale Immunoinformatics Enhances Serodiagnosis of Bovine Neosporosis. J Clin Microbiol 2020; 58:JCM.01343-19. [PMID: 32404479 DOI: 10.1128/jcm.01343-19] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2019] [Accepted: 05/05/2020] [Indexed: 01/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Neosporosis has become a concern since it is associated with abortion in cattle. Currently, in situ diagnosis is determined through anamnesis, evaluation of the history, and perception of the clinical signs of the herd. There is no practical and noninvasive test adapted to a large number of samples, which represents a gap for the use of new approaches that provide information about infections and the risks of herds. Here, we performed a search in the Neospora caninum genome by linear B-cell epitopes using immunoinformatic tools aiming to develop a chimeric protein with high potential to bind specifically to antibodies from infected cattle samples. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with the new chimeric antigen was developed and tested with sera from natural field N. caninum-infected bovines. The cross-reactivity of the new antigen was also evaluated using sera from bovines infected by other abortive pathogens, including Trypanosoma vivax, Leptospira sp., Mycobacterium bovis, and Brucella abortus, and enzootic bovine leucosis caused by bovine leukemia virus, as well as with samples of animals infected with Toxoplasma gondii The assay using the chimeric protein showed 96.6% ± 3.4% of sensitivity in comparison to healthy animal sera. Meanwhile, in relation to false-positive results provided by cross-reactivity with others pathogens, the specificity value was 97.0% ± 2.9%. In conclusion, immunoinformatic tools provide an efficient platform to build an accurate protein to diagnose bovine neosporosis based on serum samples.
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41
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Leow CY, Willis C, Chuah C, Leow CH, Jones M. Immunogenicity, antibody responses and vaccine efficacy of recombinant annexin B30 against Schistosoma mansoni. Parasite Immunol 2020; 42:e12693. [PMID: 31880816 DOI: 10.1111/pim.12693] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2019] [Revised: 12/09/2019] [Accepted: 12/20/2019] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
AIMS Schistosomes infect approximately 250 million people worldwide. To date, there is no effective vaccine available for the prevention of schistosome infection in endemic regions. There remains a need to develop means to confer long-term protection of individuals against reinfection. In this study, an annexin, namely annexin B30, which is highly expressed in the tegument of Schistosoma mansoni was selected to evaluate its immunogenicity and protective efficacy in a mouse model. METHODS AND RESULTS Bioinformatics analysis showed that there were three potential linear B-cell epitopes and four conformational B-cell epitopes predicted from annexin B30, respectively. Full-length annexin B30 was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3). In the presence of adjuvants, the soluble recombinant protein was evaluated for its protective efficacy in two independent vaccine trials. Immunization of CBA mice with recombinant annexin B30 formulated either in alum only or alum/CpG induced a mixed Th1/Th2 cytokine profile but no significant protection against schistosome infection was detected. CONCLUSION Recombinant annexin B30 did not confer significant protection against the parasite. The molecule may not be suitable for vaccine development. However, it could be an ideal biomarker recommended for immunodiagnostics development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chiuan Yee Leow
- Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Malaysia
| | - Charlene Willis
- School of Environment and Science, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld, Australia
| | - Candy Chuah
- Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kubang Kerian, Malaysia
| | - Chiuan Herng Leow
- Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden, Malaysia
| | - Malcolm Jones
- School of Veterinary Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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42
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Kazi A, Hisyam Ismail CMK, Anthony AA, Chuah C, Leow CH, Lim BH, Banga Singh KK, Leow CY. Designing and evaluation of an antibody-targeted chimeric recombinant vaccine encoding Shigella flexneri outer membrane antigens. INFECTION GENETICS AND EVOLUTION 2020; 80:104176. [PMID: 31923724 DOI: 10.1016/j.meegid.2020.104176] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2019] [Revised: 01/03/2020] [Accepted: 01/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Shigellosis is one of the most common diseases found in the developing countries, especially those countries that are prone flood. The causative agent for this disease is the Shigella species. This organism is one of the third most common enteropathogens responsible for childhood diarrhea. Since Shigella can survive gastric acidity and is an intracellular pathogen, it becomes difficult to treat. Also, uncontrolled use of antibiotics has led to development of resistant strains which poses a threat to public health. Therefore, there is a need for long term control of Shigella infection which can be achieved by designing a proper and effective vaccine. In this study, emphasis was made on designing a candidate that could elicit both B-cell and T-cell immune response. Hence B- and T-cell epitopes of outer membrane channel protein (OM) and putative lipoprotein (PL) from S. flexneri 2a were computationally predicted using immunoinformatics approach and a chimeric construct (chimeric-OP) containing the immunogenic epitopes selected from OM and PL was designed, cloned and expressed in E. coli system. The immunogenicity of the recombinant chimeric-OP was assessed using Shigella antigen infected rabbit antibody. The result showed that the chimeric-OP was a synthetic peptide candidate suitable for the development of vaccine and immunodiagnostics against Shigella infection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ada Kazi
- Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia
| | | | - Amy Amilda Anthony
- Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia
| | - Candy Chuah
- School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia
| | - Chiuan Herng Leow
- Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
| | - Boon Huat Lim
- School of Health Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia
| | | | - Chiuan Yee Leow
- Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Kelantan, Malaysia.
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Demolombe V, de Brevern AG, Molina F, Lavigne G, Granier C, Moreau V. Benchmarking the PEPOP methods for mimicking discontinuous epitopes. BMC Bioinformatics 2019; 20:738. [PMID: 31888437 PMCID: PMC6937815 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-019-3189-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Computational methods provide approaches to identify epitopes in protein Ags to help characterizing potential biomarkers identified by high-throughput genomic or proteomic experiments. PEPOP version 1.0 was developed as an antigenic or immunogenic peptide prediction tool. We have now improved this tool by implementing 32 new methods (PEPOP version 2.0) to guide the choice of peptides that mimic discontinuous epitopes and thus potentially able to replace the cognate protein Ag in its interaction with an Ab. In the present work, we describe these new methods and the benchmarking of their performances. Results Benchmarking was carried out by comparing the peptides predicted by the different methods and the corresponding epitopes determined by X-ray crystallography in a dataset of 75 Ag-Ab complexes. The Sensitivity (Se) and Positive Predictive Value (PPV) parameters were used to assess the performance of these methods. The results were compared to that of peptides obtained either by chance or by using the SUPERFICIAL tool, the only available comparable method. Conclusion The PEPOP methods were more efficient than, or as much as chance, and 33 of the 34 PEPOP methods performed better than SUPERFICIAL. Overall, “optimized” methods (tools that use the traveling salesman problem approach to design peptides) can predict peptides that best match true epitopes in most cases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vincent Demolombe
- BPMP, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, Univ Montpellier, Montpellier, France
| | - Alexandre G de Brevern
- INSERM UMR-S 1134, DSIMB, F-75739, Paris, France.,Univ Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Univ de la Réunion, Univ des Antilles, UMR 1134, F-75739, Paris, France.,INTS, F-75739, Paris, France.,Laboratoire d'Excellence GR-Ex, F75737, Paris, France
| | - Franck Molina
- Sys2Diag UMR 9005 CNRS/ALCEDIAGComplex System Modeling and Engineering for Diagnosis, Cap delta/Parc Euromédecine, 1682 rue de la Valsière CS 61003, 34184, Montpellier Cedex 4, France
| | | | - Claude Granier
- Sys2Diag UMR 9005 CNRS/ALCEDIAGComplex System Modeling and Engineering for Diagnosis, Cap delta/Parc Euromédecine, 1682 rue de la Valsière CS 61003, 34184, Montpellier Cedex 4, France
| | - Violaine Moreau
- CNRS, UMR5048, INSERM, U1054, Université Montpellier, Centre de Biochimie Structurale, 29, route de Navacelles, 34090, Montpellier, France.
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Karadag M, Arslan M, Kaleli NE, Kalyoncu S. Physicochemical determinants of antibody-protein interactions. ADVANCES IN PROTEIN CHEMISTRY AND STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY 2019; 121:85-114. [PMID: 32312427 DOI: 10.1016/bs.apcsb.2019.08.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Antibodies are specialized proteins generated by immune system for high specificity and affinity binding to target antigens. Because of their essential roles in immune system, antibodies have been successfully developed and engineered as biopharmaceuticals for treatment of various diseases. Analysis of antibody-protein interactions is always required to get detailed information on effectivity of such antibody-based therapeutics. Although physicochemical rules cannot be generalized for every antibody-protein interaction, there are some features which should be taken into account during antibody development and engineering efforts. In this chapter, physicochemical analysis of antibody paratope-protein epitope interactions will be discussed to highlight important characteristics. First, paratope and non-paratope regions of antibodies will be described and important roles of these regions on binding and biophysical features of antibodies will be discussed. Then, general features of epitope regions of protein antigens will be introduced along with several computational/experimental tools to identify them. Lastly, a rising star of antibody biopharmaceuticals, nanobodies, will be described to show importance of next-generation antibody fragment based biopharmaceuticals in drug development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Murat Karadag
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir, Turkey
| | - Merve Arslan
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir, Turkey
| | - Nazli Eda Kaleli
- Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center, İzmir, Turkey; Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylul University, İzmir, Turkey
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45
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Current In Vitro Assays for Prediction of T Cell Mediated Immunogenicity of Biotherapeutics and Manufacturing Impurities. J Pharm Innov 2019. [DOI: 10.1007/s12247-019-09412-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
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46
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Demolombe V, de Brevern AG, Felicori L, NGuyen C, Machado de Avila RA, Valera L, Jardin-Watelet B, Lavigne G, Lebreton A, Molina F, Moreau V. PEPOP 2.0: new approaches to mimic non-continuous epitopes. BMC Bioinformatics 2019; 20:387. [PMID: 31296178 PMCID: PMC6625012 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-019-2867-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/05/2018] [Accepted: 04/30/2019] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Bioinformatics methods are helpful to identify new molecules for diagnostic or therapeutic applications. For example, the use of peptides capable of mimicking binding sites has several benefits in replacing a protein which is difficult to produce, or toxic. Using peptides is less expensive. Peptides are easier to manipulate, and can be used as drugs. Continuous epitopes predicted by bioinformatics tools are commonly used and these sequential epitopes are used as is in further experiments. Numerous discontinuous epitope predictors have been developed but only two bioinformatics tools have been proposed so far to predict peptide sequences: Superficial and PEPOP 2.0. PEPOP 2.0 can generate series of peptide sequences that can replace continuous or discontinuous epitopes in their interaction with their cognate antibody. RESULTS We have developed an improved version of PEPOP (PEPOP 2.0) dedicated to answer to experimentalists' need for a tool able to handle proteins and to turn them into peptides. The PEPOP 2.0 web site has been reorganized by peptide prediction category and is therefore better formulated to experimental designs. Since the first version of PEPOP, 32 new methods of peptide design were developed. In total, PEPOP 2.0 proposes 35 methods in which 34 deal specifically with discontinuous epitopes, the most represented epitope type in nature. CONCLUSION Through the presentation of its user-friendly, well-structured new web site conceived in close proximity to experimentalists, we report original methods that show how PEPOP 2.0 can assist biologists in dealing with discontinuous epitopes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vincent Demolombe
- BPMP, CNRS, INRA, Montpellier SupAgro, Univ Montpellier, Montpellier, France
| | - Alexandre G de Brevern
- INSERM UMR-S 1134, DSIMB, F-75739, Paris, France.,Univ Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Univ de la Réunion, Univ des Antilles, UMR 1134, F-75739, Paris, France.,INTS, F-75739, Paris, France.,Laboratoire d'Excellence GR-Ex, F75737, Paris, France
| | - Liza Felicori
- Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
| | - Christophe NGuyen
- Sys2Diag UMR 9005 CNRS/ALCEDIAG, Complex System Modeling and Engineering for Diagnosis, Cap delta/Parc Euromédecine, 1682 rue de la Valsière CS 61003, 34184, Montpellier Cedex 4, France
| | - Ricardo Andrez Machado de Avila
- Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências da Saúde, Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense, Criciúma, Santa Catarina, 88806-000, Brazil
| | - Lionel Valera
- Bio-Rad Laboratories, 1682 Rue de la Valsière CS 61003, 34184, Montpellier CEDEX 04, France
| | | | | | - Aurélien Lebreton
- Service d'hématologie biologique, CHU Clermont-Ferrand, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Franck Molina
- Sys2Diag UMR 9005 CNRS/ALCEDIAG, Complex System Modeling and Engineering for Diagnosis, Cap delta/Parc Euromédecine, 1682 rue de la Valsière CS 61003, 34184, Montpellier Cedex 4, France
| | - Violaine Moreau
- Centre de Biochimie Structurale (CBS), INSERM, CNRS, Univ Montpellier, 29, route de Navacelles, 34090, Montpellier, France.
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47
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Jespersen MC, Peters B, Nielsen M, Marcatili P. BepiPred-2.0: improving sequence-based B-cell epitope prediction using conformational epitopes. Nucleic Acids Res 2019; 45:W24-W29. [PMID: 28472356 PMCID: PMC5570230 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkx346] [Citation(s) in RCA: 865] [Impact Index Per Article: 173.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2017] [Accepted: 04/20/2017] [Indexed: 02/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Antibodies have become an indispensable tool for many biotechnological and clinical applications. They bind their molecular target (antigen) by recognizing a portion of its structure (epitope) in a highly specific manner. The ability to predict epitopes from antigen sequences alone is a complex task. Despite substantial effort, limited advancement has been achieved over the last decade in the accuracy of epitope prediction methods, especially for those that rely on the sequence of the antigen only. Here, we present BepiPred-2.0 (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/BepiPred/), a web server for predicting B-cell epitopes from antigen sequences. BepiPred-2.0 is based on a random forest algorithm trained on epitopes annotated from antibody-antigen protein structures. This new method was found to outperform other available tools for sequence-based epitope prediction both on epitope data derived from solved 3D structures, and on a large collection of linear epitopes downloaded from the IEDB database. The method displays results in a user-friendly and informative way, both for computer-savvy and non-expert users. We believe that BepiPred-2.0 will be a valuable tool for the bioinformatics and immunology community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Martin Closter Jespersen
- Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark
| | - Bjoern Peters
- La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Morten Nielsen
- Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark.,Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Paolo Marcatili
- Department of Bio and Health Informatics, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark
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Second update of the International Registry of HLA Epitopes. I. The HLA-ABC Epitope Database. Hum Immunol 2018; 80:103-106. [PMID: 30458204 DOI: 10.1016/j.humimm.2018.11.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/15/2018] [Revised: 11/11/2018] [Accepted: 11/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
The International Registry of HLA Epitopes (http://www.epregistry.com.br) is a website-based resource for HLA epitopes important in transplant rejection and platelet transfusion refractoriness. Its primary goal is to document epitopes that are verified experimentally with specific antibodies. Such epitopes can be defined by single eplets and by eplets paired with certain polymorphic residues within a 15-Å radius, the dimension of the corresponding structural epitope. This report is an update of the HLA-ABC repertoire including descriptions of 72 antibody-verifications of epitopes defined by eplets and/or eplet pairs. The newly updated version 2.0 EpRegistry shows also the polymorphic residue compositions of structural epitopes corresponding to eplets shared between groups of alleles. At present, 151 eplets have not been antibody-verified, and we ranked them with a so-called ElliPro score as a potential predictor of immunogenicity. Sixty eplets with low ElliPro scores might be considered non-epitopes incapable of inducing specific antibodies.
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49
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Guo C, Zhang H, Xie X, Liu Y, Sun L, Li H, Yu P, Hu H, Sun J, Li Y, Feng Q, Zhao X, Liang D, Wang Z, Hu J. H1N1 influenza virus epitopes classified by monoclonal antibodies. Exp Ther Med 2018; 16:2001-2007. [PMID: 30186431 PMCID: PMC6122413 DOI: 10.3892/etm.2018.6429] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2017] [Accepted: 06/22/2018] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Epitopes serve an important role in influenza infection. It may be useful to screen universal influenza virus vaccines, analyzing the epitopes of multiple subtypes of the hemagglutinin (HA) protein. A total of 40 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) previously obtained from flu virus HA antigens (development and characterization of 40 mAbs generated using H1N1 influenza virus split vaccines were previously published) were used to detect and classify mAbs into distinct flu virus sub-categories using the ELISA method. Following this, the common continuous amino acid sequences were identified by multiple sequence alignment analysis with the GenBank database and DNAMAN software, for use in predicting the epitopes of the HA protein. Synthesized peptides of these common sequences were prepared, and used to verify and determine the predicted linear epitopes through localization and distribution analyses. With these methods, nine HA linear epitopes distributed among different strains of influenza virus were identified, which included three from influenza A, four from 2009 H1N1 and seasonal influenza, and two from H1. The present study showed that considering a combination of the antigen-antibody reaction specificity, variation in the influenza virus HA protein and linear epitopes may present a useful approach for designing effective multi-epitope vaccines. Furthermore, the study aimed to clarify the cause and pathogenic mechanism of influenza virus HA-induced flu, and presents a novel idea for identifying the epitopes of other pathogenic microorganisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chunyan Guo
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Haixiang Zhang
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Xin Xie
- Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710069, P.R. China
| | - Yang Liu
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Lijun Sun
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Huijin Li
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Ischemic Cardiovascular Disease, Institute of Basic and Translational Medicine, Xi'an Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710021, P.R. China
| | - Pengbo Yu
- Center of Shaanxi Provincial Disease Control and Prevention, Institute of Viral Diseases, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710052, P.R. China
| | - Hanyu Hu
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Jingying Sun
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Yuan Li
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Qing Feng
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Xiangrong Zhao
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Daoyan Liang
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Zhen Wang
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
| | - Jun Hu
- Central Laboratory, Shaanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710068, P.R. China
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