Abstract
Analysis of the Amino-peptidase N (APN) protein from Anopheles culicifacies as a vector based Transmission Blocking Vaccines (TBV) target has been considered for malaria vaccine development. Short peptides as potential epitopes for B cells and cytotoxic T cells and/or helper T cells were identified using prediction models provided by NetCTL and IEDB servers. Antigenicity determination, allergenicity, immunogenicity, epitope conservancy analysis, atomic interaction with HLA allele specific structure models and population coverage were investigated in this study. The analysis of the target protein helped to identify conserved regions as potential epitopes of APN in various Anopheles species. The T cell epitopes like peptides were further analyzed by using molecular docking to check interactions against the allele specific HLA models. Thus, we report the predicted B cell (VDERYRL) and T cell (RRYLATTQF for HLA class I and LKATFTVSI for HLA class II) epitopes like peptides from APN protein of Anopheles culicifacies (Diptera: Culicidae) for further consideration as vaccine candidates subsequent to in vitro and in vivo analysis.
Highlights
Malaria continues to remain as a life threatening infectious disease throughout the tropical region of the world
Energy minimization was done with Chimera [39] and structure validation was carried out with SAVES [40], QMEAN [41] and Results: Retrieval of protein sequence and antigenicity determination: Aminopeptidase N 1 (APN1) protein sequence of An. culicifacies retrieved from NCBI in FASTA format was screened using the VaxiJen server to predict immunogenicity
The APN1 (QCO76330) is a known antigenic protein based on overall immunogenicity prediction score
Summary
Malaria continues to remain as a life threatening infectious disease throughout the tropical region of the world. Studies on the APN 1 gene of Anopheles gambiae have shown it as a potential candidate to induce specific humoral and cellular immunity in BALB/c mice [9]. Structural analysis of midgut APN1 in Anopheles gambiae has revealed B cell epitope based malaria transmission blocking activity [10]. The vaccine is capable to induce either specific humoral or cellular immune response against the specific pathogens using combination of these epitopes like peptides [11]. It is of interest to identify conserved regions as epitopes in various species of Anopheles that elicit both neutralizing antibody and cellular immunity against parasite towards the development of an effective transmission blocking vaccine for malaria. The data reported here will help identify epitopes to draw strategy for transmission blocking malaria vaccine development
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