title: Analysis of known bacterial protein vaccine antigens reveals biased physical properties and amino acid composition.
abstract: Many vaccines have been developed from live attenuated forms of bacterial pathogens or from killed bacterial cells. However, an increased awareness of the potential for transient side-effects following vaccination has prompted an increased emphasis on the use of sub-unit vaccines, rather than those based on whole bacterial cells. The identification of vaccine sub-units is often a lengthy process and bioinformatics approaches have recently been used to identify candidate protein vaccine antigens. Such methods ultimately offer the promise of a more rapid advance towards preclinical studies with vaccines. We have compared the properties of known bacterial vaccine antigens against randomly selected proteins and identified differences in the make-up of these two groups. A computer algorithm that exploits these differences allows the identification of potential vaccine antigen candidates from pathogenic bacteria on the basis of their amino acid composition, a property inherently associated with sub-cellular location.
authors.affiliation: Dstl, Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 0JQ, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Carl
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mayers
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Duffield
authors.forename: Sonya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rowe
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Bryan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lingard
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hayward
authors.forename: Richard W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Titball