In-Silico Structural Modeling and Prediction of Conformational B-Cell Epitopes of Potential Vaccine Candidate Pre-Binding Protein

Abstract

Malaria is a life threatening infectious disease causes by Plasmodium species, wherein Plasmodium falciparum being the most lethal causes severe malaria. Plasmodium parasites have a complex life cycle and employed several immunity evading mechanism that enable the parasite to multiply and survive avoiding the host immunity. The rise in drug-resistant Plasmodium parasites and the unavailability of an effective vaccine lead to major challenges in controlling the parasite. Therefore, it is of utmost important to identify novel potential targets that can be directed for therapeutic intervention. In the present study, conservancy, localization, and the antigenicity of PREBP was determined by using different bioinformatics tools. The 3D structure of PREBP was modeled and conformational B-cell epitopes of the protein were predicted using Ellipro. The resulted epitopes might be of great importance as a vaccine sub-unit in the development of an effective malaria vaccine and the generated 3D structure of the protein can be further used for other structural analysis.