Structural and Computational Biology in the Design of Immunogenic Vaccine Antigens.

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,

SUBMITTER: Liljeroos L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4615220 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature