Functional Exposed Amino Acids of CarO Analysis as a Potential Vaccine Candidate in Acinetobacter Baumannii

Abstract

Acinetobacter baumannii is a well-recognized cause of nosocomial infections. This organism is recognized to be among the most difficult antimicrobial-resistant gram-negative bacilli to control and treat. One of the main challenges we face is Carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii. Carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii associated with the loss of an outer membrane protein designated CarO (Carbapenem resistance outer membrane protein). This protein is a membrane porin of A. baumannii. Using specific antibodies against this protein exert a bacteriostatic or bactericidal effect in vitro. Attempts should be made to discover peptides that could mimic protein epitopes and possess the same immunogenicity as the complete protein. Subsequently, bioinformatics methods for epitope prediction have been developed leading to synthesis of such peptides that are important for development of vaccine. This study provides a basis for the design of pathogen specifically, B cell epitope-based vaccine that is targeted to diseases caused by A. baumannii in the global human population. A combination of available bioinformatics tools are used to understand and characterize the Baumannii Acinetobactin utilization structure of A. baumannii and appropriate selection regions as effective B cell epitopes and functional exposed amino acids. In conclusion, amino acids 19–158 were selected as vaccine candidate.