Abstract
Gonococcal infection and transmission is a global health problem and till date no effective vaccine is available to prevent the disease transmission. Recently, analysing membrane proteome of N. gonorrhoeae we have shown that, several membrane associated proteins of the gonococcus might be important in developing anti-gonorrhoea drugs. Here, we explored the possibility of such 19 essential membrane transporter targets those may be useful in developing peptide vaccines too. Using a classical in silico technique, we have identified four best epitopes from three transporters. All identified epitopes are antigenic and predicted to induce both the T- and B-cell mediated immune responses and transmembrane helix prediction shows that, selected epitopes are mostly outside of the membrane that indicates the suitability of these epitopes to be potential peptide vaccine candidates. Identified epitopes require experimental validation.
Highlights
Gonorrhoea caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the second most common sexually transmitted disease (STD) in USA and the commonest STD prevalent in underdeveloped countries (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007; Cornelissen, 2008)
In search of candidate new peptide vaccines, we have analyzed 19 membrane associated essential transporter drug targets of N. gonorrhoeae to elucidate the possibility of these transporters to be used for dual purpose
The current analysis shows that six essential membrane transports may be used for this purpose
Summary
Gonorrhoea caused by Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the second most common sexually transmitted disease (STD) in USA and the commonest STD prevalent in underdeveloped countries (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007; Cornelissen, 2008). Common symptoms are urethritis, epididymitis, and prostatitis (Furuya and Tanaka, 2009). In our recent study, using subtractive genome analysis, we found that several membrane associated essential transporters might be good drug targets against the pathogen (Barh and Misra, 2009). As these targets are associated with cell membrane and few of them are exposed to cell surface/cell wall, these targets may be suitable for vaccine designing. In this study, we made an effort to identify such essential gonococcal transporters those can be used as drug targets as-well-as designing of peptide vaccines
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