title: Lessons from Reverse Vaccinology for viral vaccine design.
abstract: Although almost 15 years have passed since the birthdate of Reverse Vaccinology (RV), there are very limited applications of this approach to viral vaccines discovery. Undeniably, RV presents a series of advantages as it can virtually identify all potential antigens coded by a genome, irrespective of their abundance, phase of expression and immunogenicity. Additionally, it can be applied to all pathogens, including those that cannot be grown in vitro. In this review we summarize the few examples of RV application to viruses, in particular the Herpesviridae, and report the advantage and limitations of this approach. Next we focus on the novel approaches and additional technologies to vaccine development including structure based approach (Structural Vaccinology [SV]), synthetic biology and some examples of their application in the development of viral vaccines.
authors.affiliation: Novartis Vaccines, Siena, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bruno
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Diseases, Molecular Virology, Heidelberg University, Germany.
authors.forename: Mirko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cortese
authors.affiliation: Novartis Vaccines, Siena, Italy. Electronic address: rino.rappuoli@novartis.com.
authors.forename: Rino
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rappuoli
authors.affiliation: Novartis Vaccines, Siena, Italy; Department of Biology, University of Naples 'Federico II', Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Marcello
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Merola
mesh_terms: D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods; D006564:Herpesviridae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*; D022283:Herpesvirus Vaccines / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D059386:Reverse Genetics / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D022283:Herpesvirus Vaccines