Muthusamy Karthikeyan, Gopinath Krishnasamy, Nandhini Dharmalingam
Department of Bioinformatics, Science Campus, Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India.
Indian J Med Res. 2016 Oct;144(4):587-591. doi: 10.4103/0971-5916.200894.
BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES: Epitope-based vaccines (EVs) are specific, safe and easy to produce. However, vaccine failure has been frequently reported due to variation within epitopic regions. Therefore, development of vaccines based on conserved epitopes may prevent such vaccine failure. This study was undertaken to identify highly conserved antigenic regions in the four dengue serotypes to produce an epitope-based dengue vaccine.
Polyprotein sequences of all four dengue serotypes were collected and aligned using MAFFT multiple sequence alignment plugin with Geneious Pro v6.1. Consensus sequences of the polyproteins for all four dengue serotypes were designed and screened against experimentally proven epitopes to predict potential antigenic regions that are conserved among all four dengue serotypes.
The antigenic region VDRGWGNGCGLFGKG was 100 per cent conserved in the consensus polyprotein sequences of all four dengue serotypes. Fifteen experimentally proven epitopes were identical to the immunodominant antigenic region.
INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: Computationally predicted antigenic regions may be considered for use in the development of EVs for protection against dengue virus. Such vaccines would be expected to provide protection against dengue infections caused by all dengue serotypes because these would contain antigenic regions highly conserved across those serotypes. Therefore, the immunodominant antigenic region (VDRGWGNGCGLFGKG) and 15 potential epitopes may be considered for use in dengue vaccines.
基于表位的疫苗（EVs）具有特异性、安全性且易于生产。然而，由于表位区域内的变异，疫苗失败的情况屡有报道。因此，开发基于保守表位的疫苗可能会预防此类疫苗失败。本研究旨在确定四种登革热血清型中高度保守的抗原区域，以生产基于表位的登革热疫苗。
收集所有四种登革热血清型的多聚蛋白序列，并使用MAFFT多序列比对插件与Geneious Pro v6.1进行比对。设计了所有四种登革热血清型多聚蛋白的共有序列，并针对经实验验证的表位进行筛选，以预测在所有四种登革热血清型中保守的潜在抗原区域。
抗原区域VDRGWGNGCGLFGKG在所有四种登革热血清型的共有多聚蛋白序列中100%保守。15个经实验验证的表位与免疫显性抗原区域相同。
计算预测的抗原区域可考虑用于开发预防登革热病毒的EVs。此类疫苗有望提供针对所有登革热血清型引起的登革热感染的保护，因为这些疫苗将包含在这些血清型中高度保守的抗原区域。因此，免疫显性抗原区域（VDRGWGNGCGLFGKG）和15个潜在表位可考虑用于登革热疫苗。
