title: In silico analysis of antibody triggering biofilm associated protein in Acinetobacter baumannii.
abstract: Acinetobacter baumannii surface protein, commonly known as biofilm associated protein (Bap), is involved in biofilm formation. A high propensity among the clinical isolates to form biofilm and a significant association of biofilms with multiple drug resistance has been demonstrated. Production of antibodies can be used for inhibition of biofilm and control of the diseases caused by A. baumannii. Large molecular mass of Bap justifies an approach to identifying A. baumannii effective antigens. It has a core domain of seven repeat modules A-G. With the large number of available biofilm gene sequences, bioinformatic tools are needed to identify the genes encoding the antigens. Proteins containing these tandem repeats of Bap domains have high propensities to attach to each other to form biofilm. We hypothesized that conserved and functional domains of tandem repeat could be identified with a search and alignment of the repeats for evaluation of antigenic determinants. Here we demonstrate the results of bioinformatics screening and gene scan of the gene sequence database of homolog sequences to identify conserved domains. Higher scoring hits were found in repeat modules mostly D, B, C and A, respectively. Upon the analysis four regions of highly structural and functional conserved regions from Bap sequence of A. baumannii were selected. 3D structure, antigenicity and solubility predictions revealed that these regions were appropriate candidates for antibody production.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Shahed University, Tehran-Qom Express Way, Opposite Imam Khomeini's Shrine, Tehran 3319118651, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Reza
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Rahbar
authors.forename: Iraj
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rasooli
authors.forename: Seyed Latif
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Mousavi Gargari
authors.forename: Jafar
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Amani
authors.forename: Yaser
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fattahian
mesh_terms: D040981:Acinetobacter baumannii / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D001483:Base Sequence; D018441:Biofilms; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods*; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D020080:Tandem Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D008565:Membrane Proteins