The concept that HLA antibodies are specific for epitopes rather than HLA antigens is important not only for the determination of mismatch acceptability for sensitized patients but also for a better understanding of the antibody response to an HLA mismatch. Numerous publications describe epitope-specific antibodies, but there is no standardized information about the repertoire of clinically rel...

The orientation of cytochrome b6 in the thylakoid membrane and the question of whether the number of membrane spanning helices is an even or odd number was tested through the relative trypsin susceptibility of epitopes (Asp-5 to Gln-14) and (Ile-205 to Leu-214) at the NH2 and COOH termini, respectively, of the 214-residue cytochrome b6 polypeptide. A structure of the cytochrome with an even num...

The heterodimeric glycoprotein hormone, human chorionic gonadotropin, has been extensively characterized in terms of its recognition by mouse monoclonal antibodies. A number of different approaches have led to the definition of several epitope clusters on the surface of the molecule. These include epitopes located solely on the alpha- or beta-chain, some of which are masked when the two chains ...

This work presents anew computational analysis using post-genomic data in order to design a new vaccine candidate against Plasmodium falciparum, a parasite responsible for malaria. It is based on a poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) eight-branched dendrimeric structure integrating B cell epitopes. To do so, all available experimental epitopes were identified, either stored in databases or bibliographic r...

A major prerequisite for the success of tumor vaccines is their effective uptake by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and transport of these APCs to the draining lymph nodes, where the processed and presented tumor-associated antigens activate tumor-specific naive T cells. We previously suggested that the immunogenicity of autologus tumor vaccines in humans may be augmented by engineering vaccina...

BACKGROUND Most antibodies recognize conformational or discontinuous epitopes that have a specific 3-dimensional shape; however, determination of discontinuous B-cell epitopes is a major challenge in bioscience. Moreover, the current methods for identifying peptide epitopes often involve laborious, high-cost peptide screening programs. Here, we present a novel microarray method for identifying ...

BACKGROUND West Nile virus (WNV) is a growing threat to public health and a greater understanding of the immune response raised against WNV is important for the development of prophylactic and therapeutic strategies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS In a reverse-immunology approach, we used bioinformatics methods to predict WNV-specific CD8(+) T cell epitopes and selected a set of peptides that...

Most of the human tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) characterized thus far are derived from nonmutated "self"-proteins. Numerous strategies have been developed to break tolerance to TAAs, combining various forms of antigens with different vectors and adjuvants. However, no study has yet determined how to select epitopes within a given TAA to induce the highest antitumor effector response. We add...

Epitope-based vaccines designed to induce CTL responses specific for HIV-1 are being developed as a means for addressing vaccine potency and viral heterogeneity. We identified a set of 21 HLA-A2, HLA-A3, and HLA-B7 restricted supertype epitopes from conserved regions of HIV-1 to develop such a vaccine. Based on peptide-binding studies and phenotypic frequencies of HLA-A2, HLA-A3, and HLA-B7 all...

15 The association of Guillain-Barré syndrome with Zika virus infection raises suspicion of 16 autoimmunity in the pathogenesis of Zika associated disease. Using computational analysis to 17 identify predicted B and T cell epitopes, we assessed whether antibodies elicited by B cell 18 epitopes in Zika virus may also target B cell epitopes in the human proteome. We detected amino 19 acid motifs ...