Microbiota epitope similarity either dampens or enhances the immunogenicity of disease-associated antigenic epitopes.

ABSTRACT: The microbiome influences adaptive immunity and molecular mimicry influences T cell reactivity. Here, we evaluated whether the sequence similarity of various antigens to the microbiota dampens or increases immunogenicity of T cell epitopes. Sets of epitopes and control sequences derived from 38 antigenic categories (infectious pathogens, allergens, autoantigens) were retrieved from the Immune Epitope Database (IEDB). Their similarity to microbiome sequences was calculated using the BLOSUM62 matrix. We found that sequence similarity was associated with either dampened (tolerogenic; e.g. most allergens) or increased (inflammatory; e.g. Dengue and West Nile viruses) likelihood of a peptide being immunogenic as a function of epitope source category. Ten-fold cross-validation and validation usi

SUBMITTER: Carrasco Pro S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5937769 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature