Detection of Immuno Dominant Peptides against pgaB of Acinetobacter baumannii
M. Indumathi
Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, SIMATS, Saveetha University, Chennai-600 077, Tamil Nadu, India.
A. S. Smiline Girija *
Department of Microbiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, SIMATS, Saveetha University, Chennai-600 077, Tamil Nadu, India.
P. Sankar Ganesh
Department of Microbiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, SIMATS, Saveetha University, Chennai-600 077, Tamil Nadu, India.
J. Vijayashree Priyadharsini
Department of Microbiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, SIMATS, Saveetha University, Chennai-600 077, Tamil Nadu, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Background: Acinetobacter baumannii is a gram negative non-motile coccobacillus, which was considered as a low priority pathogen with low virulence. Recently, it was declared as the priority pathogen under the critical category of the most dangerous pathogen by WHO. Acinetobacter Baumannii is an inhabitant of oral biofilms, and it also increases the risk of refractory periodontitis. It causes nosocomial infections with pgaB, a part of pgaABCD operon which is involved in the biofilm formation.
Aim: The aim of the present study was to detect the immunodominant peptides against pgaB of Acinetobacter baumannii using bioinformatic tools and databases.
Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out using immune informatics. The protein sequence of the pgaB protein from A.baumannii was subjected to assess allergenicity, secondary structure, antigenicity and stability prediction of selected T cell epitopes, physico-chemical analysis, Identification of MHC class 2 binders, Final selection of B-cell epitopes was done with IEDB B-cell epitope tool
Results: Final docking of the peptides were interpreted by hydrogen bonds and interac- tion scores with TLR-2. Promising scores on antigenicity, instability were obtained. Based on the combinatorial scores, one vaccine peptide (LNLTLGLAL) was suggested to be a promising vaccine candidate against pgaB of A.baumannii.
Conclusion: The findings of the present study suggest epitope LNLTLGLAL as a promising vaccine candidate against pgaB of A.baumannii. The vaccine peptides targeting the pgaB Gene in A.baumannii using an immune-informatics approach suggests promising results in the present study. However, the predicted epitope peptides need further experimentation in animal models for its application against A.baumannii.
Keywords: Acinetobacter baumannii, novel pgaB, vaccine epitopes, environmental strains, innovative immune informatics