Identification of genome-derived vaccine candidates conserved between human and mouse-adapted strains of H. pylori

Abstract

Computational methods accelerate vaccine development by rapid identification of potential vaccine candidates. We screened the Helicobacter pylori J99 and 26695 genomes for T-cell epitopes using the epitope mapping algorithm EpiMatrix and selected 150 sequences for experimental validation in a pre-clinical mouse model. Because strains of H. pylori that infect humans do not generally infect mice, and the sequence of the mouse-adapted “Sydney” strain (SS1) is not publicly available, we used targeted PCR to confirm that epitopes we computationally predicted from the human H. pylori isolates J99 and 26695 are conserved in SS1. Epitopes conserved in SS1 were further analyzed for binding to MHC in vitro and for antigenicity in infected mice to select candidates for an epitope-based vaccine.