Predicted epitopes of malarial merozoite surface protein 1 by bioinformatics method: a clue for further vaccine development.
OBJECTIVE
Malarial merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP-1) may have value as a protective immunogen in novel vaccines against malaria. This study was performed to find potential T-cell epitopes for MSP-1 of Plasmodium vivax.


METHODS
Computation analysis of available MSP-1 of the P. vivax malaria sequence was performed to find potential T-cell epitopes using MHCPred version 2.0. Alleles for binding affinity prediction were selected and the peptides with the best binding affinities for each allele were investigated.


RESULTS
The peptides with the best predicted binding affinities were human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB0101, HLA-A0203, and HLA-DRB0701, which showed significantly lower 50% inhibitory concentration values than the other alleles.


CONCLUSIONS
These data are useful for further vaccine development because the promiscuous peptide binders enable reduction of the number of predicted epitopes without compromising the population coverage required for vaccine design.
Department of Clinical Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Wiwanitkit House, Bangkok, Thailand. wviroj@yahoo.com
Viroj
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Wiwanitkit
D000818:Animals; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D018984:Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D015234:HLA-A Antigens / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D020066:Merozoite Surface Protein 1 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D010966:Plasmodium vivax / Q000235:genetics*; D011485:Protein Binding / Q000235:genetics
D018984:Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte; D015234:HLA-A Antigens; D020066:Merozoite Surface Protein 1