EPIPOX: Immunoinformatic Characterization of the Shared T-Cell Epitome between Variola Virus and Related Pathogenic Orthopoxviruses.

ABSTRACT: Concerns that variola viruses might be used as bioweapons have renewed the interest in developing new and safer smallpox vaccines. Variola virus genomes are now widely available, allowing computational characterization of the entire T-cell epitome and the use of such information to develop safe and yet effective vaccines. To this end, we identified 124 proteins shared between various species of pathogenic orthopoxviruses including variola minor and major, monkeypox, cowpox, and vaccinia viruses, and we targeted them for T-cell epitope prediction. We recognized 8,106, and 8,483 unique class I and class II MHC-restricted T-cell epitopes that are shared by all mentioned orthopoxviruses. Subsequently, we developed an immunological resource, EPIPOX, upon the predicted T-cell epitome. EPIPOX is

SUBMITTER: Molero-Abraham M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4641182 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature