title: In Silico Design of a Chimeric Protein Containing Antigenic Fragments of Helicobacter pylori; A Bioinformatic Approach.
abstract: Helicobacter pylori is a global health problem which has encouraged scientists to find new ways to diagnose, immunize and eradicate the H. pylori infection. In silico studies are a promising approach to design new chimeric antigen having the immunogenic potential of several antigens. In order to obtain such benefit in H. pylori vaccine study, a chimeric gene containing four fragments of FliD sequence (1-600 bp), UreB (327-334 bp),VacA (744-805 bp) and CagL(51-100 bp) which have a high density of B- and T-cell epitopes was designed. The secondary and tertiary structures of the chimeric protein and other properties such as stability, solubility and antigenicity were analyzed. The in silico results showed that after optimizing for the purpose of expression in Escherichia coli BL21, the solubility and antigenicity of the construct fragments were highly retained. Most regions of the chimeric protein were found to have a high antigenic propensity and surface accessibility. These results would be useful in animal model application and accounted for the development of an epitope-based vaccine against the H. pylori.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
authors.forename: Nazanin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mohammad
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
authors.forename: Mehrnaz Taghipour
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Karsabet
authors.affiliation: Applied Microbiology Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Jafar
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Amani
authors.affiliation: Physiology Research Center, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
authors.forename: Abolfazl
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ardjmand
authors.affiliation: Gastroenterology Department, Beheshti Hospital, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohsen Razavi
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Zadeh
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Qom University of Medical Sciences, Qom, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad Khalifeh
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Gholi
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
authors.forename: Mahmood
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saffari
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghasemi
keywords: Antigenic fragments; Chimeric protein; Epitope-based vaccine; Flid; Helicobacter pylori; Sequence