title: Reverse Vaccinology: An Approach for Identifying Leptospiral Vaccine Candidates.
abstract: Leptospirosis is a major public health problem with an incidence of over one million human cases each year. It is a globally distributed, zoonotic disease and is associated with significant economic losses in farm animals. Leptospirosis is caused by pathogenicLeptospiraspp. that can infect a wide range of domestic and wild animals. Given the inability to control the cycle of transmission among animals and humans, there is an urgent demand for a new vaccine. Inactivated whole-cell vaccines (bacterins) are routinely used in livestock and domestic animals, however, protection is serovar-restricted and short-term only. To overcome these limitations, efforts have focused on the development of recombinant vaccines, with partial success. Reverse vaccinology (RV) has been successfully applied to many infectious diseases. A growing number of leptospiral genome sequences are now available in public databases, providing an opportunity to search for prospective vaccine antigens using RV. Several promising leptospiral antigens were identified using this approach, although only a few have been characterized and evaluated in animal models. In this review, we summarize the use of RV for leptospirosis and discuss the need for potential improvements for the successful development of a new vaccine towards reducing the burden of human and animal leptospirosis.
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. odir@ufpel.edu.br.
authors.forename: Odir A
authors.initials: OA
authors.lastname: Dellagostin
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. grassmann.aa@gmail.com.
authors.forename: André A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Grassmann
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. ccrizzi@yahoo.com.br.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rizzi
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. schuch.biotec@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rodrigo A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Schuch
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. sergiojorgevet@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Sérgio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jorge
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. thais.larreoliveira@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Thais L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Núcleo de Biotecnologia, Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. alan.mcbride@ufpel.edu.br.
authors.forename: Alan J A
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: McBride
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Microbiologia e Parasitologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS 96100-000, Brazil. daianehartwig@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Daiane D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Hartwig
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000276:immunology; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007919:Leptospira / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D007922:Leptospirosis / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic
keywords: Leptospira; bioinformatics; genome mining; genomics; leptospirosis; reverse vaccinology; vaccine antigen