Volume 4, Issue 1 (Vol.4 No.1 Oct 2015)                   rbmb.net 2015, 4(1): 50-59 | Back to browse issues page

PMID: 26989750

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Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Abstract:   (9761 Views)

Background: Neisseria meningitidis, a life-threatening human pathogen with the potential to cause large epidemics, can be isolated from the nasopharynx of 5–15% of adults. The aim of the current study was to evaluate biophysical and biochemical properties and immunological aspects of chimeric acyl-carrier protein-macrophage infectivity potentiator protein-type IV pilus biogenesis protein antigen (ACP-MIP-PilQ) from N. meningitidis serogroup B strain.

Methods: Biochemical properties and multiple alignments were predicted by appropriate web servers. Secondary molecular structures were predicted based on Chou and Fasman, Garnier-Osguthorpe-Robson, and Neural Network methods. Tertiary modeling elucidated conformational properties of the chimeric protein. Proteasome cleavage and transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP) binding sites, and T- and B-cell antigenic epitopes, were predicted using bioinformatic web servers.

Results: Based on our in silico and immunoinformatics analyses, the ACP-MIP-PilQ protein (AMP) can induce high-level cross-strain bactericidal activity. In addition, several immune proteasomal cleavage sites were detected. The 22 epitopes associated with MHC class I and class II (DR) alleles were confirmed in the AMP. Thirty linear B-cell epitopes as antigenic regions were predicted from the full-length protein.

Conclusion: All predicted properties of the AMP indicate it could be a good candidate for further immunological in vitro and in vivo studies.

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Subject: Biochemistry
Received: 2015/01/10 | Accepted: 2015/03/17 | Published: 2015/10/30

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