title: Common antigens prediction in bacterial bioweapons: a perspective for vaccine design.
abstract: Bioweapons (BWs) are a serious threat to mankind and the lack of efficient vaccines against bacterial bioweapons (BBWs) further worsens the situation in face of BW attack. Experts believe that difficulties in detection and ease in dissemination of deadly pathogens make BW a better option for attack compared to nuclear weapons. Molecular biology techniques facilitate the use of genetically modified BBWs thus creating uncertainty on which bacteria will be used for BW attack. In the present work, available resources such as proteomic sequences of BBWs, protective antigenic proteins (PAPs) reported in Protegen database and VaxiJen dataset, and immunogenic epitopes in immune epitope database (IEDB) were used to predict potential broad-specific vaccine candidates against BBWs. Comparison of proteomes sequences of BBWs and their analyses using in-house PERL scripts identified 44 conserved proteins and many of them were known to be immunogenic. Comparison of conserved proteins against PAPs identified six either as PAPs or their homologues with a potential of providing protection against multiple pathogens. Similarly, mapping of conserved proteins against experimentally known IEDB epitopes identified six epitopes which had exact epitope match in four proteins including three from earlier predicted six PAPs. These epitopes were also reported to provide protection against several pathogens. In the backdrop of conserved heat shock GroEL protein from Salmonella enterica providing protection against five diverse bacterial pathogens involved in different diseases, and synthetic proteins produced by combination of epitopes from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 4 viruses providing protection against both bacterium and viruses, the identified putative immunogenic conserved proteins and immune-protective epitopes can further be explored for their potential as broad-specific vaccine candidates against BBWs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173234, India. Electronic address: computationalvarun@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Varun
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Jaiswal
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173234, India. Electronic address: rajinder.chauhan@juit.ac.in.
authors.forename: Rajinder S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Chauhan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173234, India. Electronic address: chittaranjan.rout@juit.ac.in.
authors.forename: Chittaranjan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rout
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D001419:Bacteria / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D054045:Biological Warfare Agents; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein; D014780:Viruses / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines; D054045:Biological Warfare Agents; D000939:Epitopes
keywords: BW broad-specific vaccine design; Bioweapons (BWs); Computational vaccine design; Epitope; Protein vaccine candidates (PVCs)