Predicted epitopes of malarial merozoite surface protein 1 by bioinformatics method: a clue for further vaccine development.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Malarial merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP-1) may have value as a protective immunogen in novel vaccines against malaria. This study was performed to find potential T-cell epitopes for MSP-1 of Plasmodium vivax.

METHODS

Computation analysis of available MSP-1 of the P. vivax malaria sequence was performed to find potential T-cell epitopes using MHCPred version 2.0. Alleles for binding affinity prediction were selected and the peptides with the best binding affinities for each allele were investigated.

RESULTS

The peptides with the best predicted binding affinities were human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB0101, HLA-A0203, and HLA-DRB0701, which showed significantly lower 50% inhibitory concentration values than the other alleles.

CONCLUSION

These data are useful for further vaccine development because the promiscuous peptide binders enable reduction of the number of predicted epitopes without compromising the population coverage required for vaccine design.