Immunoinformatic Approaches in Epitope Prediction for Vaccine Designing against Viral infections

Abstract

Epitope prediction of immunogens using bioinformatic approaches is supposed to bring a revolution in vaccine development. Computer based prediction tools has reduced both the number of validation experiments and time for epitope prediction. A number of epitope prediction tools are now available on the web, and bioinformatics-based prediction of CTL epitopes has gained huge popularity in drug designing. For a vaccine to be successful against the viral infections, it needs to ideally stimulate humoral or cellular immune responses. The in silico search mainly focuses for individual immunogenic components that can target different arms of the immune system. Peptide based drug can be designed by targeting the protein, involved in stimulating the host cell immune system. Perspectives in this field are presented in the present review.