Analysis of Known Bacterial Protein Vaccine Antigens Reveals Biased Physical Properties and Amino Acid Composition.pdfVIP

Comparative and Functional Genomics Comp Funct Genom 2003; 4: 468–478. Published online in Wiley InterScience (). DOI: 10.1002/cfg.319 Primary Research Paper Analysis of known bacterial protein vaccine antigens reveals biased physical properties and amino acid composition Carl Mayers, Melanie Duffield*, Sonya Rowe, Julie Miller, Bryan Lingard, Sarah Hayward and Richard W. Titball Dstl, Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 0JQ, UK *Correspondence to: Abstract Melanie Duffield, Dstl, Porton Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 Many vaccines have been developed from live attenuated forms of bacterial pathogens 0JQ, UK. or from killed bacterial cells. However, an increased awareness of the potential E-mail: mlduffield@.uk for transient side-effects following vaccination has prompted an increased emphasis on the use of sub-unit vaccines, rather than those based on whole bacterial cells. The identification of vaccine sub-units is often a lengthy process and bioinformatics approaches have recently been used to identify candidate protein vaccine antigens. Such methods ultimately offer the promise of a more rapid advance towards pre- clinical studies with vaccines. We have compared the properties of known bacterial vaccine antigens against randomly selected proteins and identified differences in the make-up of these two groups. A computer algorithm that exploits these differences allows the identification of potential vaccine antigen candidates from pathogenic Received: 18 March 2003 bacteria