Designing and testing broadly-protective filoviral vaccines optimized for cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitope coverage.

ABSTRACT: We report the rational design and in vivo testing of mosaic proteins for a polyvalent pan-filoviral vaccine using a computational strategy designed for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) but also appropriate for Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and potentially other diverse viruses. Mosaics are sets of artificial recombinant proteins that are based on natural proteins. The recombinants are computationally selected using a genetic algorithm to optimize the coverage of potential cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes. Because evolutionary history differs markedly between HIV-1 and filoviruses, we devised an adapted computational technique that is effective for sparsely sampled taxa; our first significant result is that the mosaic technique is effective in creating high-quality mosaic filo

SUBMITTER: Fenimore PW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3463593 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature