Department of Health and Drug Sciences, Università degli Studi di Catania (IT), Catania, Italy.
Methods Mol Biol. 2023;2673:401-410. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3239-0_27.
Reverse vaccinology (RV) consists in the identification of potentially protective antigens expressed by any organism starting from genomic information and derived from in silico analysis, with the aim of promoting the discovery of new candidate vaccines against different types of pathogens. This approach makes use of bioinformatics techniques to screen the whole genomic sequence of a specific pathogen for the identification of the epitopes that could elicit the best immune response. The use of in silico techniques allows to reduce dramatically both the time and cost required for the identification of a potential vaccine, also facilitating the laborious process of selection of those antigens that, with a traditional approach, would be completely impossible to detect or culture. RV methodologies have been successfully applied for the identification of new vaccines against serogroup B meningococcus (MenB), Bacillus anthracis, Streptococcus pneumonia, Staphylococcus aureus, Chlamydia pneumoniae, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Edwardsiella tarda, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. As a case of study, we will go in depth into the application of RV techniques on Influenza A virus.
反向疫苗学（RV）是指从基因组信息和计算机分析中，鉴定任何生物体中可能具有保护作用的抗原，旨在促进针对不同类型病原体的新型候选疫苗的发现。这种方法利用生物信息学技术筛选特定病原体的整个基因组序列，以鉴定能够引起最佳免疫反应的表位。使用计算机技术可以大大减少鉴定潜在疫苗所需的时间和成本，同时还可以简化抗原选择这一繁琐的过程，对于传统方法来说，这些抗原完全不可能被检测或培养。RV 方法已成功应用于鉴定针对 B 群脑膜炎奈瑟球菌（MenB）、炭疽杆菌、肺炎链球菌、金黄色葡萄球菌、肺炎衣原体、牙龈卟啉单胞菌、迟缓爱德华菌和结核分枝杆菌等病原体的新型疫苗。作为一个研究案例，我们将深入探讨 RV 技术在甲型流感病毒中的应用。
