title: Correlation between the location of antigenic sites and the prediction of turns in proteins.
abstract: In the present study, we developed new turn scales based on the occurrence of amino acids at each of the four positions of a turn using a structural database comprised of 87 proteins. We found that the scales correctly predicted a fraction of the turn regions in proteins with approximately 80% confidence. We used the turn scales for predicting the location of antigenic sites in proteins. The method was developed with the specific aim of predicting only a few peaks for each protein (two or three). We found that it leads to a high level of accurate prediction (70% of correct prediction of known epitopes). Our method should be useful for selecting protein regions to be synthesized in order to produce anti-peptide antibodies cross-reacting with the parent protein.
authors.affiliation: UPR Structure des Macromolécules Biologiques et Mécanismes de Reconnaissance, CNRS, Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Pellequer
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Westhof
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Van Regenmortel
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D016208:Databases, Factual; D000939:Epitopes / Q000737:chemistry*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011487:Protein Conformation; D017510:Protein Folding; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000939:Epitopes; D011506:Proteins