In spite of genome sequences of both human and N. gonorrhoeae in hand, vaccine for gonorrhea is yet not available. Due to availability of several host
and pathogen genomes and numerous tools for in silico prediction of effective B-cell and T-cell epitopes; recent trend of vaccine designing has been
shifted to peptide or epitope based vaccines that are more specific, safe, and easy to produce. In order to design and develop such a peptide vaccine
against the pathogen, we adopted a novel computational approache based on sequence, structure, QSAR, and simulation methods along with fold level
analysis to predict potential antigenic B-cell epitope derived T-cell epitopes from four vaccine targets of N. gonorrhoeae previously identified by us [Barh
and Kumar (2009) In Silico Biology 9, 1-7]. Four epitopes, one from each protein, have been designed in such a way that each epitope is highly likely to
bind maximum number of HLA molecules (comprising of both the MHC-I and II) and interacts with most frequent HLA alleles (A*0201, A*0204,
B*2705, DRB1*0101, and DRB1*0401) in human population. Therefore our selected epitopes are highly potential to induce both the B-cell and T-cell
mediated immune responses. Of course, these selected epitopes require further experimental validation.
Corynebacterium diphtheriae is Gram-positive bacteria responsible for causing diphtheria in human and once regarded for high mortalities worldwide. The fatality gradually decreased with improved living standards and further alleviated when many immunization programs were introduced. Public infectious diseases have positively been controlled by vaccination, yet, the importance of vaccination usually remained unnoticed for the adults. Many of the under-development vaccines are directed towards the childhood immunization. However, numerous drug-resistant strains emerged recently that consequently decreased the effi ciency of current therapeutics and vaccines, thereby obliging the scientifi c community to start investigating new therapeutic targets in pathogenic microorganisms. In this study, we try to put together a short information regarding pathogenesis of Corynebacterium diphtheriae and reported vaccine till the date. Furthermore, we highlighted the emerging technique for identifi cation of new therapeutic targets.
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