Epitope design from transporter targets in N. gonorrhoeae

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. © 2009 Barh D, et al.