1
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Angaitkar P, Ram Janghel R, Prasad Sahu T. An MCDM approach for Reverse vaccinology model to predict bacterial protective antigens. Vaccine 2024:S0264-410X(24)00517-6. [PMID: 38704249 DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.04.078] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2023] [Revised: 01/26/2024] [Accepted: 04/20/2024] [Indexed: 05/06/2024]
Abstract
Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a significant step in sensible vaccine design. In recent years, many machine learning (ML) methods have been used to improve RV prediction accuracy. However, there are still issues with prediction accuracy and programme accessibility in ML-based RV. This paper presents a supervised ML-based method to classify bacterial protective antigens (BPAgs) and identify the model(s) that consistently perform well for the training dataset. Six ML classifiers are used for testing with physiochemical features extracted from a comprehensive training dataset. Selecting the best performing model from different performance metrics (accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, and AUC-ROC) has not been easy, because all the metrics has the same importance to predict BPAgs. To fix this issue, we propose a soft and hard ranking model based on multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for selecting the best performing ML method that classifies BPAgs. First, our proposed model uses homologous proteins (positive and negative samples) from Protegen and Uniprot databases. Second, we applied four strategies of Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique and Edited Nearest Neighbour (SMOTE-ENN) to handle the data imbalance problem and train the model using ML methods. Third, we consider MCDM-based technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) method integrated with soft and hard ranking model. The entropy is used to obtain weighted evaluation criteria for ranking the models. Our experimental evaluations show that the proposed method with best performing models (Random Forest and Extreme Gradient Boosting) outperforms compared to existing open-source RV methods using benchmark datasets.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pratik Angaitkar
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E.Road Raipur, C.G. -492010, India.
| | - Rekh Ram Janghel
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E.Road Raipur, C.G. -492010, India.
| | - Tirath Prasad Sahu
- Department of Information Technology, National Institute of Technology, Raipur, G.E.Road Raipur, C.G. -492010, India.
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2
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Bibi N, Wajeeha AW, Mukhtar M, Tahir M, Zaidi NUSS. In Vivo Validation of Novel Synthetic tbp1 Peptide-Based Vaccine Candidates against Haemophilus influenzae Strains in BALB/c Mice. Vaccines (Basel) 2023; 11:1651. [PMID: 38005983 PMCID: PMC10675187 DOI: 10.3390/vaccines11111651] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2023] [Revised: 09/16/2023] [Accepted: 10/16/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Haemophilus influenzae is a Gram-negative bacterium characterized as a small, nonmotile, facultative anaerobic coccobacillus. It is a common cause of a variety of invasive and non-invasive infections. Among six serotypes (a-f), H. influenzae type b (Hib) is the most familiar and predominant mostly in children and immunocompromised individuals. Following Hib vaccination, infections due to other serotypes have increased in number, and currently, there is no suitable effective vaccine to induce cross-strain protective antibody responses. The current study was aimed to validate the capability of two 20-mer highly conserved synthetic tbp1 (transferrin-binding protein 1) peptide-based vaccine candidates (tbp1-E1 and tbp1-E2) predicted using in silico approaches to induce immune responses against H. influenzae strains. Cytokine induction ability, immune simulations, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to confirm the candidacy of epitopic docked complexes. Synthetic peptide vaccine formulations in combination with two different adjuvants, BGs (Bacterial Ghosts) and CFA/IFA (complete/incomplete Freund's adjuvant), were used in BALB/c mouse groups in three booster shots at two-week intervals. An indirect ELISA was performed to determine endpoint antibody titers using the Student's t-distribution method. The results revealed that the synergistic use of both peptides in combination with BG adjuvants produced better results. Significant differences in absorbance values were observed in comparison to the rest of the peptide-adjuvant combinations. The findings of this study indicate that these tbp1 peptide-based vaccine candidates may present a preliminary set of peptides for the development of an effective cross-strain vaccine against H. influenzae in the future due to their highly conserved nature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naseeha Bibi
- Vaccinology and Therapeutics Research Group, Department of Industrial Biotechnology, Atta Ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan; (N.B.); (A.W.W.); (M.M.)
| | - Amtul Wadood Wajeeha
- Vaccinology and Therapeutics Research Group, Department of Industrial Biotechnology, Atta Ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan; (N.B.); (A.W.W.); (M.M.)
| | - Mamuna Mukhtar
- Vaccinology and Therapeutics Research Group, Department of Industrial Biotechnology, Atta Ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan; (N.B.); (A.W.W.); (M.M.)
| | - Muhammad Tahir
- Department of Plant Biotechnology, Atta Ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;
| | - Najam us Sahar Sadaf Zaidi
- Vaccinology and Therapeutics Research Group, Department of Industrial Biotechnology, Atta Ur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan; (N.B.); (A.W.W.); (M.M.)
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3
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Guarra F, Colombo G. Computational Methods in Immunology and Vaccinology: Design and Development of Antibodies and Immunogens. J Chem Theory Comput 2023; 19:5315-5333. [PMID: 37527403 PMCID: PMC10448727 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00513] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2023] [Indexed: 08/03/2023]
Abstract
The design of new biomolecules able to harness immune mechanisms for the treatment of diseases is a prime challenge for computational and simulative approaches. For instance, in recent years, antibodies have emerged as an important class of therapeutics against a spectrum of pathologies. In cancer, immune-inspired approaches are witnessing a surge thanks to a better understanding of tumor-associated antigens and the mechanisms of their engagement or evasion from the human immune system. Here, we provide a summary of the main state-of-the-art computational approaches that are used to design antibodies and antigens, and in parallel, we review key methodologies for epitope identification for both B- and T-cell mediated responses. A special focus is devoted to the description of structure- and physics-based models, privileged over purely sequence-based approaches. We discuss the implications of novel methods in engineering biomolecules with tailored immunological properties for possible therapeutic uses. Finally, we highlight the extraordinary challenges and opportunities presented by the possible integration of structure- and physics-based methods with emerging Artificial Intelligence technologies for the prediction and design of novel antigens, epitopes, and antibodies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Federica Guarra
- Department of Chemistry, University
of Pavia, Via Taramelli 12, 27100 Pavia, Italy
| | - Giorgio Colombo
- Department of Chemistry, University
of Pavia, Via Taramelli 12, 27100 Pavia, Italy
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4
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Inácio MM, Moreira ALE, Cruz-Leite VRM, Mattos K, Silva LOS, Venturini J, Ruiz OH, Ribeiro-Dias F, Weber SS, Soares CMDA, Borges CL. Fungal Vaccine Development: State of the Art and Perspectives Using Immunoinformatics. J Fungi (Basel) 2023; 9:633. [PMID: 37367569 DOI: 10.3390/jof9060633] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2023] [Revised: 05/12/2023] [Accepted: 05/19/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Fungal infections represent a serious global health problem, causing damage to health and the economy on the scale of millions. Although vaccines are the most effective therapeutic approach used to combat infectious agents, at the moment, no fungal vaccine has been approved for use in humans. However, the scientific community has been working hard to overcome this challenge. In this sense, we aim to describe here an update on the development of fungal vaccines and the progress of methodological and experimental immunotherapies against fungal infections. In addition, advances in immunoinformatic tools are described as an important aid by which to overcome the difficulty of achieving success in fungal vaccine development. In silico approaches are great options for the most important and difficult questions regarding the attainment of an efficient fungal vaccine. Here, we suggest how bioinformatic tools could contribute, considering the main challenges, to an effective fungal vaccine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Moisés Morais Inácio
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia 74605-170, Brazil
- Estácio de Goiás University Center, Goiânia 74063-010, Brazil
| | - André Luís Elias Moreira
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia 74605-170, Brazil
| | | | - Karine Mattos
- Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande 79070-900, Brazil
| | - Lana O'Hara Souza Silva
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia 74605-170, Brazil
| | - James Venturini
- Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande 79070-900, Brazil
| | - Orville Hernandez Ruiz
- MICROBA Research Group-Cellular and Molecular Biology Unit-CIB, School of Microbiology, University of Antioquia, Medellín 050010, Colombia
| | - Fátima Ribeiro-Dias
- Laboratório de Imunidade Natural (LIN), Instituto de Patologia Tropical e Saúde Pública, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia 74001-970, Brazil
| | - Simone Schneider Weber
- Bioscience Laboratory, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Food and Nutrition, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande 79070-900, Brazil
| | - Célia Maria de Almeida Soares
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia 74605-170, Brazil
| | - Clayton Luiz Borges
- Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia 74605-170, Brazil
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5
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Dimitrov I, Doytchinova I. Prediction of Bacterial Immunogenicity by Machine Learning Methods. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2673:289-303. [PMID: 37258922 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3239-0_20] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Prediction of bacterial immunogens is a prerequisite for the process of vaccine development through reverse vaccinology. The application of in silico methods allows significant reduction in time and cost for the discovery of potential vaccine candidates among proteins of a bacterial species. The steps in the prediction algorithm include collection of protein sequence datasets of known bacterial immunogens and non-immunogens, data preprocessing to transform the protein sequences into numerical matrices suitable for use as training and test sets for various machine learning methods, and derivation of predictive models. The performance of the derived models is evaluated by means of classification metrics.In this chapter, we present a protocol for predicting bacterial immunogenicity by applying machine learning methods. The protocol describes the process of model development from data collection and manipulation to training and validation of the derived models.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ivan Dimitrov
- Faculty of Pharmacy, Medical University - Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria.
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6
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Preeti P, Nath SK, Arambam N, Sharma T, Choudhury PR, Choudhury A, Khanna V, Strych U, Hotez PJ, Bottazzi ME, Rawal K. Vaxi-DL: An Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Platform for Vaccine Development. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2673:305-316. [PMID: 37258923 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-3239-0_21] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/02/2023]
Abstract
Vaccine development is a complex and long process. It involves several steps, including computational studies, experimental analyses, animal model system studies, and clinical trials. This process can be accelerated by using in silico antigen screening to identify potential vaccine candidates. In this chapter, we describe a deep learning-based technique which utilizes 18 biological and 9154 physicochemical properties of proteins for finding potential vaccine candidates. Using this technique, a new web-based system, named Vaxi-DL, was developed which helped in finding new vaccine candidates from bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and fungi. Vaxi-DL is available at: https://vac.kamalrawal.in/vaxidl/ .
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Affiliation(s)
- P Preeti
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Swarsat Kaushik Nath
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Nevidita Arambam
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Trapti Sharma
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Priyanka Ray Choudhury
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Alakto Choudhury
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Vrinda Khanna
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
| | - Ulrich Strych
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
- Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Houston, TX, USA
| | - Peter J Hotez
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
- Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA
| | - Maria Elena Bottazzi
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
- Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA
- Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA
| | - Kamal Rawal
- Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, AIB, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India.
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7
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Vij S, Thakur R, Rishi P. Reverse engineering approach: a step towards a new era of vaccinology with special reference to Salmonella. Expert Rev Vaccines 2022; 21:1763-1785. [PMID: 36408592 DOI: 10.1080/14760584.2022.2148661] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Salmonella is responsible for causing enteric fever, septicemia, and gastroenteritis in humans. Due to high disease burden and emergence of multi- and extensively drug-resistant Salmonella strains, it is becoming difficult to treat the infection with existing battery of antibiotics as we are not able to discover newer antibiotics at the same pace at which the pathogens are acquiring resistance. Though vaccines against Salmonella are available commercially, they have limited efficacy. Advancements in genome sequencing technologies and immunoinformatics approaches have solved the problem significantly by giving rise to a new era of vaccine designing, i.e. 'Reverse engineering.' Reverse engineering/vaccinology has expedited the vaccine identification process. Using this approach, multiple potential proteins/epitopes can be identified and constructed as a single entity to tackle enteric fever. AREAS COVERED This review provides details of reverse engineering approach and discusses various protein and epitope-based vaccine candidates identified using this approach against typhoidal Salmonella. EXPERT OPINION Reverse engineering approach holds great promise for developing strategies to tackle the pathogen(s) by overcoming the limitations posed by existing vaccines. Progressive advancements in the arena of reverse vaccinology, structural biology, and systems biology combined with an improved understanding of host-pathogen interactions are essential components to design new-generation vaccines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shania Vij
- Department of Microbiology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
| | - Reena Thakur
- Department of Microbiology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
| | - Praveen Rishi
- Department of Microbiology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
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8
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Pissarra J, Dorkeld F, Loire E, Bonhomme V, Sereno D, Lemesre JL, Holzmuller P. SILVI, an open-source pipeline for T-cell epitope selection. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0273494. [PMID: 36070252 PMCID: PMC9451077 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273494] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2021] [Accepted: 08/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
High-throughput screening of available genomic data and identification of potential antigenic candidates have promoted the development of epitope-based vaccines and therapeutics. Several immunoinformatic tools are available to predict potential epitopes and other immunogenicity-related features, yet it is still challenging and time-consuming to compare and integrate results from different algorithms. We developed the R script SILVI (short for: from in silico to in vivo), to assist in the selection of the potentially most immunogenic T-cell epitopes from Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)-binding prediction data. SILVI merges and compares data from available HLA-binding prediction servers, and integrates additional relevant information of predicted epitopes, namely BLASTp alignments with host proteins and physical-chemical properties. The two default criteria applied by SILVI and additional filtering allow the fast selection of the most conserved, promiscuous, strong binding T-cell epitopes. Users may adapt the script at their discretion as it is written in open-source R language. To demonstrate the workflow and present selection options, SILVI was used to integrate HLA-binding prediction results of three example proteins, from viral, bacterial and parasitic microorganisms, containing validated epitopes included in the Immune Epitope Database (IEDB), plus the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) proteome. Applying different filters on predicted IC50, hydrophobicity and mismatches with host proteins allows to significantly reduce the epitope lists with favourable sensitivity and specificity to select immunogenic epitopes. We contemplate SILVI will assist T-cell epitope selections and can be continuously refined in a community-driven manner, helping the improvement and design of peptide-based vaccines or immunotherapies. SILVI development version is available at: github.com/JoanaPissarra/SILVI2020 and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6865909.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana Pissarra
- UMR INTERTRYP, IRD, CIRAD, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
- * E-mail:
| | - Franck Dorkeld
- UMR CBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Montpellier SupAgro, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
| | - Etienne Loire
- UMR ASTRE, CIRAD, INRAE, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
| | - Vincent Bonhomme
- ISEM, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
| | - Denis Sereno
- UMR INTERTRYP, IRD, CIRAD, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
| | - Jean-Loup Lemesre
- UMR INTERTRYP, IRD, CIRAD, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
| | - Philippe Holzmuller
- UMR ASTRE, CIRAD, INRAE, University of Montpellier (I-MUSE), Montpellier, France
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9
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Huffman A, Ong E, Hur J, D’Mello A, Tettelin H, He Y. COVID-19 vaccine design using reverse and structural vaccinology, ontology-based literature mining and machine learning. Brief Bioinform 2022; 23:bbac190. [PMID: 35649389 PMCID: PMC9294427 DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbac190] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2022] [Revised: 04/13/2022] [Accepted: 04/26/2022] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Rational vaccine design, especially vaccine antigen identification and optimization, is critical to successful and efficient vaccine development against various infectious diseases including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In general, computational vaccine design includes three major stages: (i) identification and annotation of experimentally verified gold standard protective antigens through literature mining, (ii) rational vaccine design using reverse vaccinology (RV) and structural vaccinology (SV) and (iii) post-licensure vaccine success and adverse event surveillance and its usage for vaccine design. Protegen is a database of experimentally verified protective antigens, which can be used as gold standard data for rational vaccine design. RV predicts protective antigen targets primarily from genome sequence analysis. SV refines antigens through structural engineering. Recently, RV and SV approaches, with the support of various machine learning methods, have been applied to COVID-19 vaccine design. The analysis of post-licensure vaccine adverse event report data also provides valuable results in terms of vaccine safety and how vaccines should be used or paused. Ontology standardizes and incorporates heterogeneous data and knowledge in a human- and computer-interpretable manner, further supporting machine learning and vaccine design. Future directions on rational vaccine design are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anthony Huffman
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
| | - Edison Ong
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
| | - Junguk Hur
- Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Grand Forks, North Dakota 58202, USA
| | - Adonis D’Mello
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA
| | - Hervé Tettelin
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA
| | - Yongqun He
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Center for Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
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10
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Challenges in Serologic Diagnostics of Neglected Human Systemic Mycoses: An Overview on Characterization of New Targets. Pathogens 2022; 11:pathogens11050569. [PMID: 35631090 PMCID: PMC9143782 DOI: 10.3390/pathogens11050569] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2022] [Revised: 04/18/2022] [Accepted: 04/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Systemic mycoses have been viewed as neglected diseases and they are responsible for deaths and disabilities around the world. Rapid, low-cost, simple, highly-specific and sensitive diagnostic tests are critical components of patient care, disease control and active surveillance. However, the diagnosis of fungal infections represents a great challenge because of the decline in the expertise needed for identifying fungi, and a reduced number of instruments and assays specific to fungal identification. Unfortunately, time of diagnosis is one of the most important risk factors for mortality rates from many of the systemic mycoses. In addition, phenotypic and biochemical identification methods are often time-consuming, which has created an increasing demand for new methods of fungal identification. In this review, we discuss the current context of the diagnosis of the main systemic mycoses and propose alternative approaches for the identification of new targets for fungal pathogens, which can help in the development of new diagnostic tests.
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11
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Rawal K, Sinha R, Nath SK, Preeti P, Kumari P, Gupta S, Sharma T, Strych U, Hotez P, Bottazzi ME. Vaxi-DL: A web-based deep learning server to identify potential vaccine candidates. Comput Biol Med 2022; 145:105401. [PMID: 35381451 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2022.105401] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2021] [Revised: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 03/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
The development of a new vaccine is a challenging exercise involving several steps including computational studies, experimental work, and animal studies followed by clinical studies. To accelerate the process, in silico screening is frequently used for antigen identification. Here, we present Vaxi-DL, web-based deep learning (DL) software that evaluates the potential of protein sequences to serve as vaccine target antigens. Four different DL pathogen models were trained to predict target antigens in bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and viruses that cause infectious diseases in humans. Datasets containing antigenic and non-antigenic sequences were derived from known vaccine candidates and the Protegen database. Biological and physicochemical properties were computed for the datasets using publicly available bioinformatics tools. For each of the four pathogen models, the datasets were divided into training, validation, and testing subsets and then scaled and normalised. The models were constructed using Fully Connected Layers (FCLs), hyper-tuned, and trained using the training subset. Accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, recall, and AUC (Area under the Curve) were used as metrics to assess the performance of these models. The models were benchmarked using independent datasets of known target antigens against other prediction tools such as VaxiJen and Vaxign-ML. We also tested Vaxi-DL on 219 known potential vaccine candidates (PVC) from 37 different pathogens. Our tool predicted 175 PVCs correctly out of 219 sequences. We also tested Vaxi-DL on different datasets obtained from multiple resources. Our tool has demonstrated an average sensitivity of 93% and will thus be a useful tool for prioritising PVCs for preclinical studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kamal Rawal
- Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
| | - Robin Sinha
- Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
| | | | - P Preeti
- Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
| | - Priya Kumari
- Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
| | - Srijanee Gupta
- Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
| | - Trapti Sharma
- Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
| | - Ulrich Strych
- Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
| | - Peter Hotez
- Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA; Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA.
| | - Maria Elena Bottazzi
- Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology and Microbiology, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA; Department of Biology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA.
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12
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Singh R, Capalash N, Sharma P. Vaccine development to control the rising scourge of antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii: a systematic review. 3 Biotech 2022; 12:85. [PMID: 35261870 PMCID: PMC8890014 DOI: 10.1007/s13205-022-03148-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2021] [Accepted: 02/11/2022] [Indexed: 03/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Acinetobacter baumannii has emerged as one of major nosocomial pathogen and global emergence of multidrug-resistant strains has become a challenge for developing effective treatment options. A. baumannii has developed resistance to almost all the antibiotics viz. beta-lactams, carbapenems, tigecycline and now colistin, a last resort of antibiotics. The world is on the cusp of post antibiotic era and the evolution of multi-, extreme- and pan–drug-resistant A. baumannii strains is its obvious harbinger. Various combinations of antibiotics have been investigated but no successful treatment option is available. All these failed efforts have led researchers to develop and implement prophylactic vaccination for the prevention of infections caused by this pathogen. In this review, the advantages and disadvantages of active and passive immunization, the types of sub-unit and multi-component vaccine candidates investigated against A. baumannii viz. whole cell organism, outer membrane vesicles, outer membrane complexes, conjugate vaccines and sub-unit vaccines have been discussed. In addition, the benefits of Reverse vaccinology are emphasized here in which the potential vaccine candidates are predicted using bioinformatic online tools prior to in vivo validations.
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13
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Michalik M, Djahanschiri B, Leo JC, Linke D. An Update on "Reverse Vaccinology": The Pathway from Genomes and Epitope Predictions to Tailored, Recombinant Vaccines. METHODS IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY (CLIFTON, N.J.) 2022; 2412:45-71. [PMID: 34918241 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1892-9_4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
In this chapter, we review the computational approaches that have led to a new generation of vaccines in recent years. There are many alternative routes to develop vaccines based on the concept of reverse vaccinology. They all follow the same basic principles-mining available genome and proteome information for antigen candidates, and recombinantly expressing them for vaccine production. Some of the same principles have been used successfully for cancer therapy approaches. In this review, we focus on infectious diseases, describing the general workflow from bioinformatic predictions of antigens and epitopes down to examples where such predictions have been used successfully for vaccine development.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Bardya Djahanschiri
- Institute of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany
| | - Jack C Leo
- Department of Biosciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
| | - Dirk Linke
- Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
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14
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Monreal-Escalante E, Ramos-Vega A, Angulo C, Bañuelos-Hernández B. Plant-Based Vaccines: Antigen Design, Diversity, and Strategies for High Level Production. Vaccines (Basel) 2022; 10:100. [PMID: 35062761 PMCID: PMC8782010 DOI: 10.3390/vaccines10010100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Revised: 12/25/2021] [Accepted: 01/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Vaccines for human use have conventionally been developed by the production of (1) microbial pathogens in eggs or mammalian cells that are then inactivated, or (2) by the production of pathogen proteins in mammalian and insect cells that are purified for vaccine formulation, as well as, more recently, (3) by using RNA or DNA fragments from pathogens. Another approach for recombinant antigen production in the last three decades has been the use of plants as biofactories. Only have few plant-produced vaccines been evaluated in clinical trials to fight against diseases, of which COVID-19 vaccines are the most recent to be FDA approved. In silico tools have accelerated vaccine design, which, combined with transitory antigen expression in plants, has led to the testing of promising prototypes in pre-clinical and clinical trials. Therefore, this review deals with a description of immunoinformatic tools and plant genetic engineering technologies used for antigen design (virus-like particles (VLP), subunit vaccines, VLP chimeras) and the main strategies for high antigen production levels. These key topics for plant-made vaccine development are discussed and perspectives are provided.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Monreal-Escalante
- Immunology and Vaccinology Group, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste, Instituto PoliItécnico Nacional 195, Playa Palo de Santa Rita Sur, La Paz 23096, BCS, Mexico; (A.R.-V.); (C.A.)
- CONACYT—Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste (CIBNOR), Instituto Politécnico Nacional 195, Playa Palo de Santa Rita Sur, La Paz 23096, BCS, Mexico
| | - Abel Ramos-Vega
- Immunology and Vaccinology Group, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste, Instituto PoliItécnico Nacional 195, Playa Palo de Santa Rita Sur, La Paz 23096, BCS, Mexico; (A.R.-V.); (C.A.)
| | - Carlos Angulo
- Immunology and Vaccinology Group, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste, Instituto PoliItécnico Nacional 195, Playa Palo de Santa Rita Sur, La Paz 23096, BCS, Mexico; (A.R.-V.); (C.A.)
| | - Bernardo Bañuelos-Hernández
- Escuela de Veterinaria, Universidad De La Salle Bajío, Avenida Universidad 602, Lomas del Campestre, Leon 37150, GTO, Mexico
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15
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Mohammadzadeh R, Soleimanpour S, Pishdadian A, Farsiani H. Designing and development of epitope-based vaccines against Helicobacter pylori. Crit Rev Microbiol 2021; 48:489-512. [PMID: 34559599 DOI: 10.1080/1040841x.2021.1979934] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Helicobacter pylori infection is the principal cause of serious diseases (e.g. gastric cancer and peptic ulcers). Antibiotic therapy is an inadequate strategy in H. pylori eradication because of which vaccination is an inevitable approach. Despite the presence of countless vaccine candidates, current vaccines in clinical trials have performed with poor efficacy which makes vaccination extremely challenging. Remarkable advancements in immunology and pathogenic biology have provided an appropriate opportunity to develop various epitope-based vaccines. The fusion of proper antigens involved in different aspects of H. pylori colonization and pathogenesis as well as peptide linkers and built-in adjuvants results in producing epitope-based vaccines with excellent therapeutic efficacy and negligible adverse effects. Difficulties of the in vitro culture of H. pylori, high genetic variation, and unfavourable immune responses against feeble epitopes in the complete antigen are major drawbacks of current vaccine strategies that epitope-based vaccines may overcome. Besides decreasing the biohazard risk, designing precise formulations, saving time and cost, and induction of maximum immunity with minimum adverse effects are the advantages of epitope-based vaccines. The present article is a comprehensive review of strategies for designing and developing epitope-based vaccines to provide insights into the innovative vaccination against H. pylori.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roghayeh Mohammadzadeh
- Antimicrobial Resistance Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.,Department of Microbiology and Virology, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
| | - Saman Soleimanpour
- Antimicrobial Resistance Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.,Reference Tuberculosis Laboratory, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
| | - Abbas Pishdadian
- Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Zabol University of Medical Sciences, Zabol, Iran
| | - Hadi Farsiani
- Antimicrobial Resistance Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.,Department of Microbiology and Virology, School of Medicine, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
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16
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Ong E, Cooke MF, Huffman A, Xiang Z, Wong MU, Wang H, Seetharaman M, Valdez N, He Y. Vaxign2: the second generation of the first Web-based vaccine design program using reverse vaccinology and machine learning. Nucleic Acids Res 2021; 49:W671-W678. [PMID: 34009334 PMCID: PMC8218197 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkab279] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2021] [Revised: 03/29/2021] [Accepted: 04/15/2021] [Indexed: 01/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Vaccination is one of the most significant inventions in medicine. Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a state-of-the-art technique to predict vaccine candidates from pathogen's genome(s). To promote vaccine development, we updated Vaxign2, the first web-based vaccine design program using reverse vaccinology with machine learning. Vaxign2 is a comprehensive web server for rational vaccine design, consisting of predictive and computational workflow components. The predictive part includes the original Vaxign filtering-based method and a new machine learning-based method, Vaxign-ML. The benchmarking results using a validation dataset showed that Vaxign-ML had superior prediction performance compared to other RV tools. Besides the prediction component, Vaxign2 implemented various post-prediction analyses to significantly enhance users' capability to refine the prediction results based on different vaccine design rationales and considerably reduce user time to analyze the Vaxign/Vaxign-ML prediction results. Users provide proteome sequences as input data, select candidates based on Vaxign outputs and Vaxign-ML scores, and perform post-prediction analysis. Vaxign2 also includes precomputed results from approximately 1 million proteins in 398 proteomes of 36 pathogens. As a demonstration, Vaxign2 was used to effectively analyse SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing COVID-19. The comprehensive framework of Vaxign2 can support better and more rational vaccine design. Vaxign2 is publicly accessible at http://www.violinet.org/vaxign2.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edison Ong
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Michael F Cooke
- School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Anthony Huffman
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Zuoshuang Xiang
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Mei U Wong
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Haihe Wang
- Department of Pathogenobiology, Daqing Branch of Harbin Medical University, Daqing, Helongjiang, China
| | - Meenakshi Seetharaman
- Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Ninotchka Valdez
- Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Yongqun He
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
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17
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Wang W, Liu J, Guo S, Liu L, Yuan Q, Guo L, Pan S. Identification of Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibrio spp. Specific Outer Membrane Proteins by Reverse Vaccinology and Surface Proteome. Front Microbiol 2021; 11:625315. [PMID: 33633699 PMCID: PMC7901925 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.625315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2020] [Accepted: 12/18/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The discovery of outer membrane proteins (OMPs) with desirable specificity and surface availability is a fundamental challenge to develop accurate immunodiagnostic assay and multivalent vaccine of pathogenic Vibrio species in food and aquaculture. Herein 101 OMPs were systemically screened from 4,831 non-redundant proteins of Vibrio parahaemolyticus by bioinformatical predication of signaling peptides, transmembrane (TM) α-helix, and subcellular location. The sequence homology analysis with 32 species of Vibrio spp. and all the non-Vibrio strains revealed that 15 OMPs were conserved in at least 23 Vibrio species, including BamA (VP2310), GspD (VP0133), Tolc (VP0425), OmpK (VP2362), OmpW (VPA0096), LptD (VP0339), Pal (VP1061), flagellar L-ring protein (VP0782), flagellar protein MotY (VP2111), hypothetical protein (VP1713), fimbrial assembly protein (VP2746), VacJ lipoprotein (VP2214), agglutination protein (VP1634), and lipoprotein (VP1267), Chitobiase (VP0755); high adhesion probability of flgH, LptD, OmpK, and OmpW indicated they were potential multivalent Vibrio vaccine candidates. V. parahaemolyticus OMPs were found to share high homology with at least one or two Vibrio species, 19 OMPs including OmpA like protein (VPA073), CsuD (VPA1504), and MtrC (VP1220) were found relatively specific to V. parahaemolyticus. The surface proteomic study by enzymatical shaving the cells showed the capsular polysaccharides most likely limited the protease action, while the glycosidases improved the availability of OMPs to trypsin. The OmpA (VPA1186, VPA0248, VP0764), Omp (VPA0166), OmpU (VP2467), BamA (VP2310), TolC (VP0425), GspD (VP0133), OmpK (VP2362), lpp (VPA1469), Pal (VP1061), agglutination protein (VP1634), and putative iron (III) compound receptor (VPA1435) have better availability on the cell surface.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wenbin Wang
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresources and Environment, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
| | - Jianxin Liu
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
| | - Shanshan Guo
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
| | - Lei Liu
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
| | - Qianyun Yuan
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
| | - Lei Guo
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresources and Environment, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
| | - Saikun Pan
- Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Co-Innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.,Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresources and Environment, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China
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18
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Bacterial Immunogenicity Prediction by Machine Learning Methods. Vaccines (Basel) 2020; 8:vaccines8040709. [PMID: 33265930 PMCID: PMC7711804 DOI: 10.3390/vaccines8040709] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2020] [Revised: 11/19/2020] [Accepted: 11/24/2020] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The identification of protective immunogens is the most important and vigorous initial step in the long-lasting and expensive process of vaccine design and development. Machine learning (ML) methods are very effective in data mining and in the analysis of big data such as microbial proteomes. They are able to significantly reduce the experimental work for discovering novel vaccine candidates. Here, we applied six supervised ML methods (partial least squares-based discriminant analysis, k nearest neighbor (kNN), random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), random subspace method (RSM), and extreme gradient boosting) on a set of 317 known bacterial immunogens and 317 bacterial non-immunogens and derived models for immunogenicity prediction. The models were validated by internal cross-validation in 10 groups from the training set and by the external test set. All of them showed good predictive ability, but the xgboost model displays the most prominent ability to identify immunogens by recognizing 84% of the known immunogens in the test set. The combined RSM-kNN model was the best in the recognition of non-immunogens, identifying 92% of them in the test set. The three best performing ML models (xgboost, RSM-kNN, and RF) were implemented in the new version of the server VaxiJen, and the prediction of bacterial immunogens is now based on majority voting.
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19
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Russo G, Reche P, Pennisi M, Pappalardo F. The combination of artificial intelligence and systems biology for intelligent vaccine design. Expert Opin Drug Discov 2020; 15:1267-1281. [PMID: 32662677 DOI: 10.1080/17460441.2020.1791076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION A new body of evidence depicts the applications of artificial intelligence and systems biology in vaccine design and development. The combination of both approaches shall revolutionize healthcare, accelerating clinical trial processes and reducing the costs and time involved in drug research and development. AREAS COVERED This review explores the basics of artificial intelligence and systems biology approaches in the vaccine development pipeline. The topics include a detailed description of epitope prediction tools for designing epitope-based vaccines and agent-based models for immune system response prediction, along with a focus on their potentiality to facilitate clinical trial phases. EXPERT OPINION Artificial intelligence and systems biology offer the opportunity to avoid the inefficiencies and failures that arise in the classical vaccine development pipeline. One promising solution is the combination of both methodologies in a multiscale perspective through an accurate pipeline. We are entering an 'in silico era' in which scientific partnerships, including a more and more increasing creation of an 'ecosystem' of collaboration and multidisciplinary approach, are relevant for addressing the long and risky road of vaccine discovery and development. In this context, regulatory guidance should be developed to qualify the in silico trials as evidence for intelligent vaccine development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giulia Russo
- Department of Drug Sciences, University of Catania , Catania, Italy
| | - Pedro Reche
- Department of Immunology, Universidad Complutense De Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria , Madrid, Spain
| | - Marzio Pennisi
- Computer Science Institute, DiSIT, University of Eastern Piedmont , Italy
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20
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Parvizpour S, Pourseif MM, Razmara J, Rafi MA, Omidi Y. Epitope-based vaccine design: a comprehensive overview of bioinformatics approaches. Drug Discov Today 2020; 25:1034-1042. [DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2020.03.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 46] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2019] [Revised: 01/12/2020] [Accepted: 03/06/2020] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
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Ong E, Wang H, Wong MU, Seetharaman M, Valdez N, He Y. Vaxign-ML: supervised machine learning reverse vaccinology model for improved prediction of bacterial protective antigens. Bioinformatics 2020; 36:3185-3191. [PMID: 32096826 PMCID: PMC7214037 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2019] [Revised: 02/10/2020] [Accepted: 02/18/2020] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a milestone in rational vaccine design, and machine learning (ML) has been applied to enhance the accuracy of RV prediction. However, ML-based RV still faces challenges in prediction accuracy and program accessibility. RESULTS This study presents Vaxign-ML, a supervised ML classification to predict bacterial protective antigens (BPAgs). To identify the best ML method with optimized conditions, five ML methods were tested with biological and physiochemical features extracted from well-defined training data. Nested 5-fold cross-validation and leave-one-pathogen-out validation were used to ensure unbiased performance assessment and the capability to predict vaccine candidates against a new emerging pathogen. The best performing model (eXtreme Gradient Boosting) was compared to three publicly available programs (Vaxign, VaxiJen, and Antigenic), one SVM-based method, and one epitope-based method using a high-quality benchmark dataset. Vaxign-ML showed superior performance in predicting BPAgs. Vaxign-ML is hosted in a publicly accessible web server and a standalone version is also available. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION Vaxign-ML website at http://www.violinet.org/vaxign/vaxign-ml, Docker standalone Vaxign-ML available at https://hub.docker.com/r/e4ong1031/vaxign-ml and source code is available at https://github.com/VIOLINet/Vaxign-ML-docker. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edison Ong
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
| | - Haihe Wang
- Department of Pathogenobiology, Daqing Branch of Harbin Medical University, Daqing 163319, China
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine
| | | | | | - Ninotchka Valdez
- College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan
| | - Yongqun He
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology
- Center of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
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22
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Oli AN, Obialor WO, Ifeanyichukwu MO, Odimegwu DC, Okoyeh JN, Emechebe GO, Adejumo SA, Ibeanu GC. Immunoinformatics and Vaccine Development: An Overview. Immunotargets Ther 2020; 9:13-30. [PMID: 32161726 PMCID: PMC7049754 DOI: 10.2147/itt.s241064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 102] [Impact Index Per Article: 25.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2019] [Accepted: 01/25/2020] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
The use of vaccines have resulted in a remarkable improvement in global health. It has saved several lives, reduced treatment costs and raised the quality of animal and human lives. Current traditional vaccines came empirically with either vague or completely no knowledge of how they modulate our immune system. Even at the face of potential vaccine design advance, immune-related concerns (as seen with specific vulnerable populations, cases of emerging/re-emerging infectious disease, pathogens with complex lifecycle and antigenic variability, need for personalized vaccinations, and concerns for vaccines' immunological safety -specifically vaccine likelihood to trigger non-antigen-specific responses that may cause autoimmunity and vaccine allergy) are being raised. And these concerns have driven immunologists toward research for a better approach to vaccine design that will consider these challenges. Currently, immunoinformatics has paved the way for a better understanding of some infectious disease pathogenesis, diagnosis, immune system response and computational vaccinology. The importance of this immunoinformatics in the study of infectious diseases is diverse in terms of computational approaches used, but is united by common qualities related to host–pathogen relationship. Bioinformatics methods are also used to assign functions to uncharacterized genes which can be targeted as a candidate in vaccine design and can be a better approach toward the inclusion of women that are pregnant into vaccine trials and programs. The essence of this review is to give insight into the need to focus on novel computational, experimental and computation-driven experimental approaches for studying of host–pathogen interactions and thus making a case for its use in vaccine development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angus Nnamdi Oli
- Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria
| | - Wilson Okechukwu Obialor
- Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria
| | - Martins Ositadimma Ifeanyichukwu
- Department of Immunology, College of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Anambra, Nigeria.,Department of Medical Laboratory Science,Faculty of Health Science and Technology, College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University,Nnewi Campus, Nnewi, Nigeria
| | - Damian Chukwu Odimegwu
- Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu, Nigeria
| | - Jude Nnaemeka Okoyeh
- Department of Biology and Clinical Laboratory Science, Division of Arts and Sciences, Neumann University, Aston, PA 19014-1298, USA
| | - George Ogonna Emechebe
- Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Clinical Medicine, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Awka, Nigeria
| | - Samson Adedeji Adejumo
- Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria
| | - Gordon C Ibeanu
- Department of Pharmaceutical Science, North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC 27707, USA
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D'Mello A, Ahearn CP, Murphy TF, Tettelin H. ReVac: a reverse vaccinology computational pipeline for prioritization of prokaryotic protein vaccine candidates. BMC Genomics 2019; 20:981. [PMID: 31842745 PMCID: PMC6916091 DOI: 10.1186/s12864-019-6195-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2019] [Accepted: 10/16/2019] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Reverse vaccinology accelerates the discovery of potential vaccine candidates (PVCs) prior to experimental validation. Current programs typically use one bacterial proteome to identify PVCs through a filtering architecture using feature prediction programs or a machine learning approach. Filtering approaches may eliminate potential antigens based on limitations in the accuracy of prediction tools used. Machine learning approaches are heavily dependent on the selection of training datasets with experimentally validated antigens (positive control) and non-protective-antigens (negative control). The use of one or few bacterial proteomes does not assess PVC conservation among strains, an important feature of vaccine antigens. Results We present ReVac, which implements both a panoply of feature prediction programs without filtering out proteins, and scoring of candidates based on predictions made on curated positive and negative control PVCs datasets. ReVac surveys several genomes assessing protein conservation, as well as DNA and protein repeats, which may result in variable expression of PVCs. ReVac’s orthologous clustering of conserved genes, identifies core and dispensable genome components. This is useful for determining the degree of conservation of PVCs among the population of isolates for a given pathogen. Potential vaccine candidates are then prioritized based on conservation and overall feature-based scoring. We present the application of ReVac, applied to 69 Moraxella catarrhalis and 270 non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae genomes, prioritizing 64 and 29 proteins as PVCs, respectively. Conclusion ReVac’s use of a scoring scheme ranks PVCs for subsequent experimental testing. It employs a redundancy-based approach in its predictions of features using several prediction tools. The protein’s features are collated, and each protein is ranked based on the scoring scheme. Multi-genome analyses performed in ReVac allow for a comprehensive overview of PVCs from a pan-genome perspective, as an essential pre-requisite for any bacterial subunit vaccine design. ReVac prioritized PVCs of two human respiratory pathogens, identifying both novel and previously validated PVCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Adonis D'Mello
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA
| | - Christian P Ahearn
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA.,Clinical and Translational Research Center, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA
| | - Timothy F Murphy
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA.,Clinical and Translational Research Center, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA.,Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Medicine, University at Buffalo, the State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, 14203, USA
| | - Hervé Tettelin
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA.
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Comparative transcriptome analysis of different stages of Plasmodium falciparum to explore vaccine and drug candidates. Genomics 2019; 112:796-804. [PMID: 31128264 DOI: 10.1016/j.ygeno.2019.05.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2019] [Revised: 04/30/2019] [Accepted: 05/20/2019] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
Malaria is a life-threatening disease causes huge burden on human health. Every year >200 million cases of malaria are reported globally. Researchers have carried out research on transcriptome of different stages of Plasmodium species to understand complex pathology of pathogens and to discover therapeutics. Researchers are targeting different stages of Plasmodium falciparum separately. Hence, to target all stages of Plasmodium simultaneously comparative transcriptome analysis of different stages was carried out and 44 commonly expressed proteins from different stages of Plasmodium were identified. These proteins were analyzed for their drug target and vaccine potential in different analysis. Conservation of these proteins in human infecting Plasmodium species was also studied. Current approach is also justified because few of these proteins were found to be known vaccine and drug target candidates in different infectious diseases. These proteins can be taken as drug targets and/or vaccine candidates in further experimentation against malaria.
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Naz K, Naz A, Ashraf ST, Rizwan M, Ahmad J, Baumbach J, Ali A. PanRV: Pangenome-reverse vaccinology approach for identifications of potential vaccine candidates in microbial pangenome. BMC Bioinformatics 2019; 20:123. [PMID: 30871454 PMCID: PMC6419457 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-019-2713-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2018] [Accepted: 03/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Background A revolutionary diversion from classical vaccinology to reverse vaccinology approach has been observed in the last decade. The ever-increasing genomic and proteomic data has greatly facilitated the vaccine designing and development process. Reverse vaccinology is considered as a cost-effective and proficient approach to screen the entire pathogen genome. To look for broad-spectrum immunogenic targets and analysis of closely-related bacterial species, the assimilation of pangenome concept into reverse vaccinology approach is essential. The categories of species pangenome such as core, accessory, and unique genes sets can be analyzed for the identification of vaccine candidates through reverse vaccinology. Results We have designed an integrative computational pipeline term as “PanRV” that employs both the pangenome and reverse vaccinology approaches. PanRV comprises of four functional modules including i) Pangenome Estimation Module (PGM) ii) Reverse Vaccinology Module (RVM) iii) Functional Annotation Module (FAM) and iv) Antibiotic Resistance Association Module (ARM). The pipeline is tested by using genomic data from 301 genomes of Staphylococcus aureus and the results are verified by experimentally known antigenic data. Conclusion The proposed pipeline has proved to be the first comprehensive automated pipeline that can precisely identify putative vaccine candidates exploiting the microbial pangenome. PanRV is a Linux based package developed in JAVA language. An executable installer is provided for ease of installation along with a user manual at https://sourceforge.net/projects/panrv2/. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12859-019-2713-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kanwal Naz
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan
| | - Anam Naz
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan
| | - Shifa Tariq Ashraf
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan
| | - Muhammad Rizwan
- Research Center for Modeling and Simulation (RCMS), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Jamil Ahmad
- Research Center for Modeling and Simulation (RCMS), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan.,Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malakand, Chakdara, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
| | - Jan Baumbach
- Chair of Experimental Bioinformatics, TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munchen, Germany
| | - Amjad Ali
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan.
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Rahman MS, Rahman MK, Saha S, Kaykobad M, Rahman MS. Antigenic: An improved prediction model of protective antigens. Artif Intell Med 2019; 94:28-41. [DOI: 10.1016/j.artmed.2018.12.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/04/2018] [Revised: 10/31/2018] [Accepted: 12/28/2018] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
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Dalsass M, Brozzi A, Medini D, Rappuoli R. Comparison of Open-Source Reverse Vaccinology Programs for Bacterial Vaccine Antigen Discovery. Front Immunol 2019; 10:113. [PMID: 30837982 PMCID: PMC6382693 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.00113] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2018] [Accepted: 01/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Reverse Vaccinology (RV) is a widely used approach to identify potential vaccine candidates (PVCs) by screening the proteome of a pathogen through computational analyses. Since its first application in Group B meningococcus (MenB) vaccine in early 1990's, several software programs have been developed implementing different flavors of the first RV protocol. However, there has been no comprehensive review to date on these different RV tools. We have compared six of these applications designed for bacterial vaccines (NERVE, Vaxign, VaxiJen, Jenner-predict, Bowman-Heinson, and VacSol) against a set of 11 pathogens for which a curated list of known bacterial protective antigens (BPAs) was available. We present results on: (1) the comparison of criteria and programs used for the selection of PVCs (2) computational runtime and (3) performances in terms of fraction of proteome identified as PVC, fraction and enrichment of BPA identified in the set of PVCs. This review demonstrates that none of the programs was able to recall 100% of the tested set of BPAs and that the output lists of proteins are in poor agreement suggesting in the process of prioritize vaccine candidates not to rely on a single RV tool response. Singularly the best balance in terms of fraction of a proteome predicted as good candidate and recall of BPAs has been observed by the machine-learning approach proposed by Bowman (1) and enhanced by Heinson (2). Even though more performing than the other approaches it shows the disadvantage of limited accessibility to non-experts users and strong dependence between results and a-priori training dataset composition. In conclusion we believe that to significantly enhance the performances of next RV methods further studies should focus on the enhancement of accuracy of the existing protein annotation tools and should leverage on the assets of machine-learning techniques applied to biological datasets expanded also through the incorporation and curation of bacterial proteins characterized by negative experimental results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mattia Dalsass
- GlaxoSmithKline, Siena, Italy.,Dipartimento di Scienze Cliniche e Biologiche, Università degli Studi di Torino, Turin, Italy
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Pasala C, Chilamakuri CSR, Katari SK, Nalamolu RM, Bitla AR, Amineni U. Epitope-driven common subunit vaccine design against H. pylori strains. J Biomol Struct Dyn 2018; 37:3740-3750. [DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2018.1526714] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Chiranjeevi Pasala
- Bioinformatics Centre, Department of Bioinformatics, SVIMS University, Tirupati, AP, India
| | | | - Sudheer Kumar Katari
- Bioinformatics Centre, Department of Bioinformatics, SVIMS University, Tirupati, AP, India
| | | | - Aparna R. Bitla
- Department of Biochemistry, SVIMS University, Tirupati, AP, India
| | - Umamaheswari Amineni
- Bioinformatics Centre, Department of Bioinformatics, SVIMS University, Tirupati, AP, India
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Bragazzi NL, Gianfredi V, Villarini M, Rosselli R, Nasr A, Hussein A, Martini M, Behzadifar M. Vaccines Meet Big Data: State-of-the-Art and Future Prospects. From the Classical 3Is ("Isolate-Inactivate-Inject") Vaccinology 1.0 to Vaccinology 3.0, Vaccinomics, and Beyond: A Historical Overview. Front Public Health 2018; 6:62. [PMID: 29556492 PMCID: PMC5845111 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2018.00062] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2017] [Accepted: 02/16/2018] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Vaccines are public health interventions aimed at preventing infections-related mortality, morbidity, and disability. While vaccines have been successfully designed for those infectious diseases preventable by preexisting neutralizing specific antibodies, for other communicable diseases, additional immunological mechanisms should be elicited to achieve a full protection. “New vaccines” are particularly urgent in the nowadays society, in which economic growth, globalization, and immigration are leading to the emergence/reemergence of old and new infectious agents at the animal–human interface. Conventional vaccinology (the so-called “vaccinology 1.0”) was officially born in 1796 thanks to the contribution of Edward Jenner. Entering the twenty-first century, vaccinology has shifted from a classical discipline in which serendipity and the Pasteurian principle of the three Is (isolate, inactivate, and inject) played a major role to a science, characterized by a rational design and plan (“vaccinology 3.0”). This shift has been possible thanks to Big Data, characterized by different dimensions, such as high volume, velocity, and variety of data. Big Data sources include new cutting-edge, high-throughput technologies, electronic registries, social media, and social networks, among others. The current mini-review aims at exploring the potential roles as well as pitfalls and challenges of Big Data in shaping the future vaccinology, moving toward a tailored and personalized vaccine design and administration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola Luigi Bragazzi
- Department of Health Sciences (DISSAL), School of Public Health, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
| | - Vincenza Gianfredi
- Department of Experimental Medicine, Unit of Public Health, School of Specialization in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
| | - Milena Villarini
- Unit of Public Health, Department of Pharmaceutical Science, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
| | | | - Ahmed Nasr
- Department of Medicine and Surgery, Pathology University Milan Bicocca, San Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Italy
| | - Amr Hussein
- Medical Faculty, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
| | - Mariano Martini
- Section of History of Medicine and Ethics, Department of Health Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy
| | - Masoud Behzadifar
- Health Management and Economics Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
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Pal T, Padhan JK, Kumar P, Sood H, Chauhan RS. Comparative transcriptomics uncovers differences in photoautotrophic versus photoheterotrophic modes of nutrition in relation to secondary metabolites biosynthesis in Swertia chirayita. Mol Biol Rep 2018; 45:77-98. [PMID: 29349608 DOI: 10.1007/s11033-017-4135-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2016] [Accepted: 12/12/2017] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Swertia chirayita is a high-value medicinal herb exhibiting antidiabetic, hepatoprotective, anticancer, antiediematogenic and antipyretic properties. Scarcity of its plant material has necessitated in vitro production of therapeutic metabolites; however, their yields were low compared to field grown plants. Possible reasons for this could be differences in physiological and biochemical processes between plants grown in photoautotrophic versus photoheterotrophic modes of nutrition. Comparative transcriptomes of S. chirayita were generated to decipher the crucial molecular components associated with the secondary metabolites biosynthesis. Illumina HiSeq sequencing yielded 57,460 and 43,702 transcripts for green house grown (SCFG) and tissue cultured (SCTC) plants, respectively. Biological role analysis (GO and COG assignments) revealed major differences in SCFG and SCTC transcriptomes. KEGG orthology mapped 351 and 341 transcripts onto secondary metabolites biosynthesis pathways for SCFG and SCTC transcriptomes, respectively. Nineteen out of 30 genes from primary metabolism showed higher in silico expression (FPKM) in SCFG versus SCTC, possibly indicating their involvement in regulating the central carbon pool. In silico data were validated by RT-qPCR using a set of 16 genes, wherein 10 genes showed similar expression pattern across both the methods. Comparative transcriptomes identified differentially expressed transcription factors and ABC-type transporters putatively associated with secondary metabolism in S. chirayita. Additionally, functional classification was performed using NCBI Biosystems database. This study identified the molecular components implicated in differential modes of nutrition (photoautotrophic vs. photoheterotrophic) in relation to secondary metabolites production in S. chirayita.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tarun Pal
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, 173234, India
| | - Jibesh Kumar Padhan
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, 173234, India
| | - Pawan Kumar
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, 173234, India
| | - Hemant Sood
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, 173234, India
| | - Rajinder S Chauhan
- Department of Biotechnology, Bennett University, a Times Group Initiative, Plot No 8-11, TechZone II, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, 201310, India.
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31
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Baliga P, Shekar M, Venugopal MN. Potential Outer Membrane Protein Candidates for Vaccine Development Against the Pathogen Vibrio anguillarum: A Reverse Vaccinology Based Identification. Curr Microbiol 2017; 75:368-377. [PMID: 29119233 DOI: 10.1007/s00284-017-1390-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/19/2017] [Accepted: 10/31/2017] [Indexed: 01/07/2023]
Abstract
Reverse vaccinology is a widely used approach that has facilitated the rapid identification of vaccine candidates suitable in vaccine development for pathogens. Vibrio anguillarum is a major pathogen responsible for vibriosis in fish and shellfish leading to huge economic losses to the aquaculture industry. Although commercial vaccines are available for fish against this bacterium they have their own limitations. In this study, we used the reverse vaccinology strategy to screen and identify V. anguillarum outer membrane proteins (OMPs) that could serve as vaccine candidates. Our analysis identified 23 antigenic outer membrane proteins which were highly conserved (>98% identity) across serovars of this bacterium. Of the 23, two were identified as outer membrane lipoproteins. Among the OMPs identified 18 were novel to this study and conserved across several Vibrio spp. with an identity of 21-93%. While the least (>48%) identity was observed for V. anguillarum ferrichrome-iron transporter protein, the highest identity (>80%) was seen for outer membrane proteins OmpK, BamA, OmpU, Fatty acid transporter, and two hypothetical proteins. These potential vaccine targets identified could contribute to the development of effective vaccine not only against V. anguillarum but also across other Vibrio spp. In addition, several B-cell and T-cell epitopes were predicted for the novel OMPs in this study which could aid in narrowing down peptide selection in designing a suitable epitope-based vaccine.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pallavi Baliga
- Department of Fisheries Microbiology, College of Fisheries, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Mangalore, 575 002, India
| | - Malathi Shekar
- Department of Fisheries Microbiology, College of Fisheries, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Mangalore, 575 002, India.
| | - Moleyur Nagarajappa Venugopal
- Department of Fisheries Microbiology, College of Fisheries, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University, Mangalore, 575 002, India
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32
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Ong E, Wong MU, He Y. Identification of New Features from Known Bacterial Protective Vaccine Antigens Enhances Rational Vaccine Design. Front Immunol 2017; 8:1382. [PMID: 29123525 PMCID: PMC5662880 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01382] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2017] [Accepted: 10/06/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
With many protective vaccine antigens reported in the literature and verified experimentally, how to use the knowledge mined from these antigens to support rational vaccine design and study underlying design mechanism remains unclear. In order to address the problem, a systematic bioinformatics analysis was performed on 291 Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial protective antigens with experimental evidence manually curated in the Protegen database. The bioinformatics analyses evaluated included subcellular localization, adhesin probability, peptide signaling, transmembrane α-helix and β-barrel, conserved domain, Clusters of Orthologous Groups, and Gene Ontology functional annotations. Here we showed the critical role of adhesins, along with subcellular localization, peptide signaling, in predicting secreted extracellular or surface-exposed protective antigens, with mechanistic explanations supported by functional analysis. We also found a significant negative correlation of transmembrane α-helix to antigen protectiveness in Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens, while a positive correlation of transmembrane β-barrel was observed in Gram-negative pathogens. The commonly less-focused cytoplasmic and cytoplasmic membrane proteins could be potentially predicted with the help of other selection criteria such as adhesin probability and functional analysis. The significant findings in this study can support rational vaccine design and enhance our understanding of vaccine design mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edison Ong
- Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
| | - Mei U Wong
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
| | - Yongqun He
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States.,Center of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
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Vishambra D, Srivastava M, Dev K, Jaiswal V. Subcellular localization based comparative study on radioresistant bacteria: A novel approach to mine proteins involve in radioresistance. Comput Biol Chem 2017; 69:1-9. [PMID: 28527408 DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiolchem.2017.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2016] [Revised: 03/25/2017] [Accepted: 05/05/2017] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Radioresistant bacteria (RRB) are among the most radioresistant organisms and has a unique role in evolution. Along with the evolutionary role, radioresistant organisms play important role in paper industries, bioremediation, vaccine development and possibility in anti-aging and anti-cancer treatment. The study of radiation resistance in RRB was mainly focused on cytosolic mechanisms such as DNA repair mechanism, cell cleansing activity and high antioxidant activity. Although it was known that protein localized on outer areas of cell play role in resistance towards extreme condition but the mechanisms/proteins localized on the outer area of cells are not studied for radioresistance. Considering the fact that outer part of cell is more exposed to radiations and proteins present in outer area of the cell may have role in radioresistance. Localization based comparative study of proteome from RRB and non-radio resistant bacteria was carried out. In RRB 20 unique proteins have been identified. Further domain, structural, and pathway analysis of selected proteins were carried out. Out of 20 proteins, 8 proteins were direct involvement in radioresistance and literature study strengthens this, however, 1 proteins had assumed relation in radioresistance. Selected radioresistant proteins may be helpful for optimal use of RRB in industry and health care.
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Affiliation(s)
- Divya Vishambra
- Faculty of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, Shoolini University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India
| | - Malay Srivastava
- Faculty of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, Shoolini University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India
| | - Kamal Dev
- Faculty of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, Shoolini University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India
| | - Varun Jaiswal
- School of Electrical and Computer Science Engineering, Shoolini University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India.
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Rizwan M, Naz A, Ahmad J, Naz K, Obaid A, Parveen T, Ahsan M, Ali A. VacSol: a high throughput in silico pipeline to predict potential therapeutic targets in prokaryotic pathogens using subtractive reverse vaccinology. BMC Bioinformatics 2017; 18:106. [PMID: 28193166 PMCID: PMC5307925 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-017-1540-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2016] [Accepted: 02/08/2017] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Background With advances in reverse vaccinology approaches, a progressive improvement has been observed in the prediction of putative vaccine candidates. Reverse vaccinology has changed the way of discovery and provides a mean to propose target identification in reduced time and labour. In this regard, high throughput genomic sequencing technologies and supporting bioinformatics tools have greatly facilitated the prompt analysis of pathogens, where various predicted candidates have been found effective against certain infections and diseases. A pipeline, VacSol, is designed here based on a similar approach to predict putative vaccine candidates both rapidly and efficiently. Results VacSol, a new pipeline introduced here, is a highly scalable, multi-mode, and configurable software designed to automate the high throughput in silico vaccine candidate prediction process for the identification of putative vaccine candidates against the proteome of bacterial pathogens. Vaccine candidates are screened using integrated, well-known and robust algorithms/tools for proteome analysis, and the results from the VacSol software are presented in five different formats by taking proteome sequence as input in FASTA file format. The utility of VacSol is tested and compared with published data and using the Helicobacter pylori 26695 reference strain as a benchmark. Conclusion VacSol rapidly and efficiently screens the whole bacterial pathogen proteome to identify a few predicted putative vaccine candidate proteins. This pipeline has the potential to save computational costs and time by efficiently reducing false positive candidate hits. VacSol results do not depend on any universal set of rules and may vary based on the provided input. It is freely available to download from: https://sourceforge.net/projects/vacsol/. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-017-1540-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Muhammad Rizwan
- Research Center for Modelling and Simulation (RCMS), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Anam Naz
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Jamil Ahmad
- Research Center for Modelling and Simulation (RCMS), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan.
| | - Kanwal Naz
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Ayesha Obaid
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Tamsila Parveen
- Biosciences Department, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Muhammad Ahsan
- Research Center for Modelling and Simulation (RCMS), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan
| | - Amjad Ali
- Atta-ur-Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan.
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Heinson AI, Gunawardana Y, Moesker B, Hume CCD, Vataga E, Hall Y, Stylianou E, McShane H, Williams A, Niranjan M, Woelk CH. Enhancing the Biological Relevance of Machine Learning Classifiers for Reverse Vaccinology. Int J Mol Sci 2017; 18:ijms18020312. [PMID: 28157153 PMCID: PMC5343848 DOI: 10.3390/ijms18020312] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2016] [Accepted: 01/17/2017] [Indexed: 12/11/2022] Open
Abstract
Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a bioinformatics approach that can predict antigens with protective potential from the protein coding genomes of bacterial pathogens for subunit vaccine design. RV has become firmly established following the development of the BEXSERO® vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B. RV studies have begun to incorporate machine learning (ML) techniques to distinguish bacterial protective antigens (BPAs) from non-BPAs. This research contributes significantly to the RV field by using permutation analysis to demonstrate that a signal for protective antigens can be curated from published data. Furthermore, the effects of the following on an ML approach to RV were also assessed: nested cross-validation, balancing selection of non-BPAs for subcellular localization, increasing the training data, and incorporating greater numbers of protein annotation tools for feature generation. These enhancements yielded a support vector machine (SVM) classifier that could discriminate BPAs (n = 200) from non-BPAs (n = 200) with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.787. In addition, hierarchical clustering of BPAs revealed that intracellular BPAs clustered separately from extracellular BPAs. However, no immediate benefit was derived when training SVM classifiers on data sets exclusively containing intra- or extracellular BPAs. In conclusion, this work demonstrates that ML classifiers have great utility in RV approaches and will lead to new subunit vaccines in the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashley I Heinson
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
| | | | - Bastiaan Moesker
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
| | - Carmen C Denman Hume
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Department of Pathogen Molecular BiologyLondon WC1E 7HT, UK.
| | - Elena Vataga
- Solutions, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
| | - Yper Hall
- Public Health England, National Infection Service, Porton Down Salisbury, SP4 0JG, UK.
| | - Elena Stylianou
- The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
| | - Helen McShane
- The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK.
| | - Ann Williams
- Public Health England, National Infection Service, Porton Down Salisbury, SP4 0JG, UK.
| | - Mahesan Niranjan
- Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
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37
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Madampage CA, Wilson D, Townsend H, Crockford G, Rawlyk N, Dent D, Evans B, Van Donkersgoed J, Dorin C, Potter A. Cattle Immunized with a Recombinant Subunit Vaccine Formulation Exhibits a Trend towards Protection against Histophilus somni Bacterial Challenge. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0159070. [PMID: 27501390 PMCID: PMC4976985 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159070] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2016] [Accepted: 06/27/2016] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Histophilosis, a mucosal and septicemic infection of cattle is caused by the Gram negative pathogen Histophilus somni (H. somni). As existing vaccines against H. somni infection have shown to be of limited efficacy, we used a reverse vaccinology approach to identify new vaccine candidates. Three groups (B, C, D) of cattle were immunized with subunit vaccines and a control group (group A) was vaccinated with adjuvant alone. All four groups were challenged with H. somni. The results demonstrate that there was no significant difference in clinical signs, joint lesions, weight change or rectal temperature between any of the vaccinated groups (B,C,D) vs the control group A. However, the trend to protection was greatest for group C vaccinates. The group C vaccine was a pool of six recombinant proteins. Serum antibody responses determined using ELISA showed significantly higher titers for group C, with P values ranging from < 0.0148 to < 0.0002, than group A. Even though serum antibody titers in group B (5 out of 6 antigens) and group D were significantly higher compared to group A, they exerted less of a trend towards protection. In conclusion, the vaccine used in group C exhibits a trend towards protective immunity in cattle and would be a good candidate for further analysis to determine which proteins were responsible for the trend towards protection.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Avis Madampage
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
- * E-mail:
| | - Don Wilson
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Hugh Townsend
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Gordon Crockford
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Neil Rawlyk
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Donna Dent
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Brock Evans
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
| | | | - Craig Dorin
- Veterinary Agri-Health Services, 201–151 East Lake Blvd, Airdrie, Alberta, T4A 2G1, Canada
| | - Andrew Potter
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E3, Canada
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Moise L, Gutierrez A, Kibria F, Martin R, Tassone R, Liu R, Terry F, Martin B, De Groot AS. iVAX: An integrated toolkit for the selection and optimization of antigens and the design of epitope-driven vaccines. Hum Vaccin Immunother 2016; 11:2312-21. [PMID: 26155959 PMCID: PMC4635942 DOI: 10.1080/21645515.2015.1061159] [Citation(s) in RCA: 72] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Computational vaccine design, also known as computational vaccinology, encompasses epitope mapping, antigen selection and immunogen design using computational tools. The iVAX toolkit is an integrated set of tools that has been in development since 1998 by De Groot and Martin. It comprises a suite of immunoinformatics algorithms for triaging candidate antigens, selecting immunogenic and conserved T cell epitopes, eliminating regulatory T cell epitopes, and optimizing antigens for immunogenicity and protection against disease. iVAX has been applied to vaccine development programs for emerging infectious diseases, cancer antigens and biodefense targets. Several iVAX vaccine design projects have had success in pre-clinical studies in animal models and are progressing toward clinical studies. The toolkit now incorporates a range of immunoinformatics tools for infectious disease and cancer immunotherapy vaccine design. This article will provide a guide to the iVAX approach to computational vaccinology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Leonard Moise
- a Institute for Immunology and Informatics; University of Rhode Island ; Providence , RI USA
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39
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A review of reverse vaccinology approaches for the development of vaccines against ticks and tick borne diseases. Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2015; 7:573-85. [PMID: 26723274 DOI: 10.1016/j.ttbdis.2015.12.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 99] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2015] [Revised: 11/24/2015] [Accepted: 12/12/2015] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
The field of reverse vaccinology developed as an outcome of the genome sequence revolution. Following the introduction of live vaccinations in the western world by Edward Jenner in 1798 and the coining of the phrase 'vaccine', in 1881 Pasteur developed a rational design for vaccines. Pasteur proposed that in order to make a vaccine that one should 'isolate, inactivate and inject the microorganism' and these basic rules of vaccinology were largely followed for the next 100 years leading to the elimination of several highly infectious diseases. However, new technologies were needed to conquer many pathogens which could not be eliminated using these traditional technologies. Thus increasingly, computers were used to mine genome sequences to rationally design recombinant vaccines. Several vaccines for bacterial and viral diseases (i.e. meningococcus and HIV) have been developed, however the on-going challenge for parasite vaccines has been due to their comparatively larger genomes. Understanding the immune response is important in reverse vaccinology studies as this knowledge will influence how the genome mining is to be conducted. Vaccine candidates for anaplasmosis, cowdriosis, theileriosis, leishmaniasis, malaria, schistosomiasis, and the cattle tick have been identified using reverse vaccinology approaches. Some challenges for parasite vaccine development include the ability to address antigenic variability as well the understanding of the complex interplay between antibody, mucosal and/or T cell immune responses. To understand the complex parasite interactions with the livestock host, there is the limitation where algorithms for epitope mining using the human genome cannot directly be adapted for bovine, for example the prediction of peptide binding to major histocompatibility complex motifs. As the number of genomes for both hosts and parasites increase, the development of new algorithms for pan-genomic mining will continue to impact the future of parasite and ricketsial (and other tick borne pathogens) disease vaccine development.
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Madampage CA, Rawlyk N, Crockford G, Wang Y, White AP, Brownlie R, Van Donkersgoed J, Dorin C, Potter A. Reverse vaccinology as an approach for developing Histophilus somni vaccine candidates. Biologicals 2015; 43:444-51. [PMID: 26460173 DOI: 10.1016/j.biologicals.2015.09.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2015] [Revised: 07/07/2015] [Accepted: 09/11/2015] [Indexed: 10/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Histophilosis of cattle is caused by the Gram negative bacterial pathogen Histophilus somni (H. somni) which is also associated with the bovine respiratory disease (BRD) complex. Existing vaccines for H. somni include either killed cells or bacteria-free outer membrane proteins from the organism which have proven to be moderately successful. In this study, reverse vaccinology was used to predict potential H. somni vaccine candidates from genome sequences. In turn, these may protect animals against new strains circulating in the field. Whole genome sequencing of six recent clinical H. somni isolates was performed using an Illumina MiSeq and compared to six genomes from the 1980's. De novo assembly of crude whole genomes was completed using Geneious 6.1.7. Protein coding regions was predicted using Glimmer3. Scores from multiple web-based programs were utilized to evaluate the antigenicity of these predicted proteins which were finally ranked based on their surface exposure scores. A single new strain was selected for future vaccine development based on conservation of the protein candidates among all 12 isolates. A positive signal with convalescent serum for these antigens in western blots indicates in vivo recognition. In order to test the protective capacity of these antigens bovine animal trials are ongoing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Claudia Avis Madampage
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada.
| | - Neil Rawlyk
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Gordon Crockford
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Yejun Wang
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Aaron P White
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada
| | - Robert Brownlie
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada
| | | | - Craig Dorin
- Veterinary Agri-Health Services, 201-151 East Lake Blvd, Airdrie, Alberta T4A 2G1, Canada
| | - Andrew Potter
- Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E3, Canada
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41
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Structural and Computational Biology in the Design of Immunogenic Vaccine Antigens. J Immunol Res 2015; 2015:156241. [PMID: 26526043 PMCID: PMC4615220 DOI: 10.1155/2015/156241] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2015] [Accepted: 08/02/2015] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Vaccination is historically one of the most important medical interventions for the prevention of infectious disease. Previously, vaccines were typically made of rather crude mixtures of inactivated or attenuated causative agents. However, over the last 10–20 years, several important technological and computational advances have enabled major progress in the discovery and design of potently immunogenic recombinant protein vaccine antigens. Here we discuss three key breakthrough approaches that have potentiated structural and computational vaccine design. Firstly, genomic sciences gave birth to the field of reverse vaccinology, which has enabled the rapid computational identification of potential vaccine antigens. Secondly, major advances in structural biology, experimental epitope mapping, and computational epitope prediction have yielded molecular insights into the immunogenic determinants defining protective antigens, enabling their rational optimization. Thirdly, and most recently, computational approaches have been used to convert this wealth of structural and immunological information into the design of improved vaccine antigens. This review aims to illustrate the growing power of combining sequencing, structural and computational approaches, and we discuss how this may drive the design of novel immunogens suitable for future vaccines urgently needed to increase the global prevention of infectious disease.
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Pal T, Malhotra N, Chanumolu SK, Chauhan RS. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) transcriptomes reveal association of multiple genes and pathways contributing to secondary metabolites accumulation in tuberous roots of Aconitum heterophyllum Wall. PLANTA 2015; 242:239-58. [PMID: 25904478 DOI: 10.1007/s00425-015-2304-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2015] [Accepted: 04/10/2015] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
The transcriptomes of Aconitum heterophyllum were assembled and characterized for the first time to decipher molecular components contributing to biosynthesis and accumulation of metabolites in tuberous roots. Aconitum heterophyllum Wall., popularly known as Atis, is a high-value medicinal herb of North-Western Himalayas. No information exists as of today on genetic factors contributing to the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites accumulating in tuberous roots, thereby, limiting genetic interventions towards genetic improvement of A. heterophyllum. Illumina paired-end sequencing followed by de novo assembly yielded 75,548 transcripts for root transcriptome and 39,100 transcripts for shoot transcriptome with minimum length of 200 bp. Biological role analysis of root versus shoot transcriptomes assigned 27,596 and 16,604 root transcripts; 12,340 and 9398 shoot transcripts into gene ontology and clusters of orthologous group, respectively. KEGG pathway mapping assigned 37 and 31 transcripts onto starch-sucrose metabolism while 329 and 341 KEGG orthologies associated with transcripts were found to be involved in biosynthesis of various secondary metabolites for root and shoot transcriptomes, respectively. In silico expression profiling of the mevalonate/2-C-methyl-D-erythritol 4-phosphate (non-mevalonate) pathway genes for aconites biosynthesis revealed 4 genes HMGR (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase), MVK (mevalonate kinase), MVDD (mevalonate diphosphate decarboxylase) and HDS (1-hydroxy-2-methyl-2-(E)-butenyl 4-diphosphate synthase) with higher expression in root transcriptome compared to shoot transcriptome suggesting their key role in biosynthesis of aconite alkaloids. Five genes, GMPase (geranyl diphosphate mannose pyrophosphorylase), SHAGGY, RBX1 (RING-box protein 1), SRF receptor kinases and β-amylase, implicated in tuberous root formation in other plant species showed higher levels of expression in tuberous roots compared to shoots. A total of 15,487 transcription factors belonging to bHLH, MYB, bZIP families and 399 ABC transporters which regulate biosynthesis and accumulation of bioactive compounds were identified in root and shoot transcriptomes. The expression of 5 ABC transporters involved in tuberous root development was validated by quantitative PCR analysis. Network connectivity diagrams were drawn for starch-sucrose metabolism and isoquinoline alkaloid biosynthesis associated with tuberous root growth and secondary metabolism, respectively, in root transcriptome of A. heterophyllum. The current endeavor will be of practical importance in planning a suitable genetic intervention strategy for the improvement of A. heterophyllum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tarun Pal
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, 173234, Himachal Pradesh, India
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Abstract
Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a computational approach that aims to identify putative vaccine candidates in the protein coding genome (proteome) of pathogens. RV has primarily been applied to bacterial pathogens to identify proteins that can be formulated into subunit vaccines, which consist of one or more protein antigens. An RV approach based on a filtering method has already been used to construct a subunit vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B that is now registered in several countries (Bexsero). Recently, machine learning methods have been used to improve the ability of RV approaches to identify vaccine candidates. Further improvements related to the incorporation of epitope-binding annotation and gene expression data are discussed. In the future, it is envisaged that RV approaches will facilitate rapid vaccine design with less reliance on conventional animal testing and clinical trials in order to curb the threat of antibiotic resistance or newly emerged outbreaks of bacterial origin.
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de Alvarenga Mudadu M, Carvalho V, Leclercq SY. Nonclassically secreted proteins as possible antigens for vaccine development: a reverse vaccinology approach. Appl Biochem Biotechnol 2015; 175:3360-70. [PMID: 25672322 DOI: 10.1007/s12010-015-1507-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2014] [Accepted: 01/21/2015] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
Reverse vaccinology strategies have already been applied to a variety of microorganisms and have contributed significantly to vaccine development. However, most of the studies focused on an individual organism or on proteins with signature sequence motifs commonly found in known secreted proteins from bacteria. In this work, we applied a reverse vaccinology strategy based on conservation, virulence, and nonclassically surface exposure criterions to identify potential antigens in two microorganisms with significant degree of genomic plasticity among isolates (Streptococcus pneumoniae and Leptospira spp.), which imposes a major limitation to the production of a multistrain component vaccine. PSORTb 3.0.2 was run to predict the subcellular localization of the proteins. OrthoMCL was run to identify groups of the most conserved proteins between strains. Virulence prediction was done for the most conserved proteins, and SecretomeP was run to predict the nonclassically secreted proteins among the potential virulence factors. Based on the above criteria, we identified 37 proteins conserved between 16 genomes of S. pneumoniae and 12 proteins conserved between 5 leptospiral genomes as potential vaccine candidates.
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Abstract
Immunoinformatics focuses on modeling immune responses for better understanding of the immune system and in many cases for proposing agents able to modify the immune system. The most classical of these agents are vaccines derived from living organisms such as smallpox or polio. More modern vaccines comprise recombinant proteins, protein domains, and in some cases peptides. Generating a vaccine from peptides however requires technologies and concepts very different from classical vaccinology. Immunoinformatics therefore provides the computational tools to propose peptides suitable for formulation into vaccines. This chapter introduces the essential biological concepts affecting design and efficacy of peptide vaccines and discusses current methods and workflows applied to design successful peptide vaccines using computers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johannes Söllner
- Emergentec Biodevelopment GmbH, Gersthofer Straße 29-31, 1180, Vienna, Austria,
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46
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He Y. Ontology-supported research on vaccine efficacy, safety and integrative biological networks. Expert Rev Vaccines 2014; 13:825-41. [PMID: 24909153 DOI: 10.1586/14760584.2014.923762] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
While vaccine efficacy and safety research has dramatically progressed with the methods of in silico prediction and data mining, many challenges still exist. A formal ontology is a human- and computer-interpretable set of terms and relations that represent entities in a specific domain and how these terms relate to each other. Several community-based ontologies (including Vaccine Ontology, Ontology of Adverse Events and Ontology of Vaccine Adverse Events) have been developed to support vaccine and adverse event representation, classification, data integration, literature mining of host-vaccine interaction networks, and analysis of vaccine adverse events. The author further proposes minimal vaccine information standards and their ontology representations, ontology-based linked open vaccine data and meta-analysis, an integrative One Network ('OneNet') Theory of Life, and ontology-based approaches to study and apply the OneNet theory. In the Big Data era, these proposed strategies provide a novel framework for advanced data integration and analysis of fundamental biological networks including vaccine immune mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongqun He
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
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47
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Jaiswal V, Chauhan RS, Rout C. Common antigens prediction in bacterial bioweapons: a perspective for vaccine design. INFECTION GENETICS AND EVOLUTION 2013; 21:315-9. [PMID: 24300889 DOI: 10.1016/j.meegid.2013.11.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/02/2013] [Revised: 11/10/2013] [Accepted: 11/11/2013] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Bioweapons (BWs) are a serious threat to mankind and the lack of efficient vaccines against bacterial bioweapons (BBWs) further worsens the situation in face of BW attack. Experts believe that difficulties in detection and ease in dissemination of deadly pathogens make BW a better option for attack compared to nuclear weapons. Molecular biology techniques facilitate the use of genetically modified BBWs thus creating uncertainty on which bacteria will be used for BW attack. In the present work, available resources such as proteomic sequences of BBWs, protective antigenic proteins (PAPs) reported in Protegen database and VaxiJen dataset, and immunogenic epitopes in immune epitope database (IEDB) were used to predict potential broad-specific vaccine candidates against BBWs. Comparison of proteomes sequences of BBWs and their analyses using in-house PERL scripts identified 44 conserved proteins and many of them were known to be immunogenic. Comparison of conserved proteins against PAPs identified six either as PAPs or their homologues with a potential of providing protection against multiple pathogens. Similarly, mapping of conserved proteins against experimentally known IEDB epitopes identified six epitopes which had exact epitope match in four proteins including three from earlier predicted six PAPs. These epitopes were also reported to provide protection against several pathogens. In the backdrop of conserved heat shock GroEL protein from Salmonella enterica providing protection against five diverse bacterial pathogens involved in different diseases, and synthetic proteins produced by combination of epitopes from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 4 viruses providing protection against both bacterium and viruses, the identified putative immunogenic conserved proteins and immune-protective epitopes can further be explored for their potential as broad-specific vaccine candidates against BBWs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Varun Jaiswal
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173234, India.
| | - Rajinder S Chauhan
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173234, India.
| | - Chittaranjan Rout
- Department of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics, Jaypee University of Information Technology, Waknaghat, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173234, India.
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48
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He Y, Racz R, Sayers S, Lin Y, Todd T, Hur J, Li X, Patel M, Zhao B, Chung M, Ostrow J, Sylora A, Dungarani P, Ulysse G, Kochhar K, Vidri B, Strait K, Jourdian GW, Xiang Z. Updates on the web-based VIOLIN vaccine database and analysis system. Nucleic Acids Res 2013; 42:D1124-32. [PMID: 24259431 PMCID: PMC3964998 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkt1133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
The integrative Vaccine Investigation and Online Information Network (VIOLIN) vaccine research database and analysis system (http://www.violinet.org) curates, stores, analyses and integrates various vaccine-associated research data. Since its first publication in NAR in 2008, significant updates have been made. Starting from 211 vaccines annotated at the end of 2007, VIOLIN now includes over 3240 vaccines for 192 infectious diseases and eight noninfectious diseases (e.g. cancers and allergies). Under the umbrella of VIOLIN, >10 relatively independent programs are developed. For example, Protegen stores over 800 protective antigens experimentally proven valid for vaccine development. VirmugenDB annotated over 200 'virmugens', a term coined by us to represent those virulence factor genes that can be mutated to generate successful live attenuated vaccines. Specific patterns were identified from the genes collected in Protegen and VirmugenDB. VIOLIN also includes Vaxign, the first web-based vaccine candidate prediction program based on reverse vaccinology. VIOLIN collects and analyzes different vaccine components including vaccine adjuvants (Vaxjo) and DNA vaccine plasmids (DNAVaxDB). VIOLIN includes licensed human vaccines (Huvax) and veterinary vaccines (Vevax). The Vaccine Ontology is applied to standardize and integrate various data in VIOLIN. VIOLIN also hosts the Ontology of Vaccine Adverse Events (OVAE) that logically represents adverse events associated with licensed human vaccines.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yongqun He
- Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, Center for Computational Medicine and Biology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, College of Pharmacy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, Division of Comparative Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA, Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, 48109, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA and Department of Biological Chemistry, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
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