Alam S M Sabbir, Amin Ruhul, Rahman Mohammed Ziaur, Hossain M Anwar, Sultana Munawar
Department of Microbiology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Adv Appl Bioinform Chem. 2013 Aug 13;6:37-46. doi: 10.2147/AABC.S49587. eCollection 2013.
Foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV), with its seven serotypes, is a highly contagious virus infecting mainly cloven-hoofed animals. The serotype Asia1 occurs mainly in Asian regions. An in-silico approach was taken to reveal the antigenic heterogeneities within the capsid protein VP1 of Asia1. A total of 47 VP1 sequences of Asia1 isolates from different countries of South Asian regions were selected, retrieved from database, and were aligned. The structure of VP1 protein was modeled using a homology modeling approach. Several antigenic sites were identified and mapped onto the three-dimensional protein structure. Variations at these antigenic sites were analyzed by calculating the protein variability index and finding mutation combinations. The data suggested that vaccine escape mutants have derived from only few mutations at several antigenic sites. Five antigenic peptides have been identified as the least variable epitopes, with just fewer amino acid substitutions. Only a limited number of serotype Asia1 antigenic variants were found to be circulated within the South Asian region. This emphasizes a possibility of formulating synthetic vaccines for controlling foot-and-mouth disease by Asia1 serotypes.
口蹄疫病毒（FMDV）有七种血清型，是一种高度传染性病毒，主要感染偶蹄动物。亚洲1型血清型主要出现在亚洲地区。采用计算机模拟方法揭示亚洲1型衣壳蛋白VP1内的抗原异质性。从数据库中选取并检索了来自南亚不同国家的47个亚洲1型分离株的VP1序列，并进行了比对。使用同源建模方法对VP1蛋白的结构进行建模。确定了几个抗原位点并将其映射到三维蛋白质结构上。通过计算蛋白质变异指数和寻找突变组合来分析这些抗原位点的变异。数据表明，疫苗逃逸突变体仅源于几个抗原位点的少数突变。已鉴定出五个抗原肽为变异最小的表位，氨基酸替换较少。在南亚地区发现只有有限数量的亚洲1型血清型抗原变体在传播。这强调了通过亚洲1型血清型研制合成疫苗来控制口蹄疫的可能性。
