In silicocharacterization ofEchinococcus granulosusparamyosin nucleotide sequence for the development of epitope vaccine against cystic echinococcosis

Abstract

SummaryThe paramyosin (Pmy) protein has been presented as a potential vaccine candidate againstSchistosomaspp. However, it remains elusive whether it works in controlling cystic echinococcosis (CE), which is caused by the larval stages ofEchinococcus granulosus(E. granulosus). This study investigated the characteristics ofE. granulosusPmy (EgPmy) usingin silicoanalysis and evaluated its potential as an epitope vaccine. The secondary structure was predicted by SOPMA software and linear B-cell epitopes were screened by the Kolaskar and Tongaonkar’s method on IEBD while conformational B-cell epitopes were predicted by the Ellipro. Additionally, the epitopes of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) were analyzed by the NetCTL-1.2 server. The results showed that α-helices, extended strands, random coils and β-turns accounted for 84.82 %, 6.60 %, 5.56 % and 3.01 % in EgPmy’s secondary structure, respectively. A total of 29 linear B-cell epitopes and 6 conformational epitopes were identified together with 25 CTL epitopes. The CTL epitope709KLEEAEAFA717showed a high potential to elicit CTL response. These results suggested that EgPmy has a strong immunogenicity, which could serve as a reference for the development of EgPmy-based epitope vaccine against CE.