Promiscuous prediction and conservancy analysis of CTL binding epitopes of HCV 3a viral proteome from Punjab Pakistan: an In Silico Approach

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>HCV is a positive sense RNA virus affecting approximately 180 million people world wide and about 10 million Pakistani populations. HCV genotype 3a is the major cause of infection in Pakistani population. One of the major problems of HCV infection especially in the developing countries that limits the limits the antiviral therapy is the long term treatment, high dosage and side effects. Studies of antigenic epitopes of viral sequences of a specific origin can provide an effective way to overcome the mutation rate and to determine the promiscuous binders to be used for epitope based subunit vaccine design. An <it>in silico </it>approach was applied for the analysis of entire HCV proteome of Pakistani origin, aimed to identify the viral epitopes and their conservancy in HCV genotypes 1, 2 and 3 of diverse origin.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Immunoinformatic tools were applied for the predictive analysis of HCV 3a antigenic epitopes of Pakistani origin. All the predicted epitopes were then subjected for their conservancy analysis in HCV genotypes 1, 2 and 3 of diverse origin (worldwide). Using freely available web servers, 150 MHC II epitopes were predicted as promiscuous binders against 51 subjected alleles. E2 protein represented the 20% of all the predicted MHC II epitopes. 75.33% of the predicted MHC II epitopes were (77-100%) conserve in genotype 3; 47.33% and 40.66% in genotype 1 and 2 respectively. 69 MHC I epitopes were predicted as promiscuous binders against 47 subjected alleles. NS4b represented 26% of all the MHC I predicted epitopes. Significantly higher epitope conservancy was represented by genotype 3 i.e. 78.26% and 21.05% for genotype 1 and 2.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study revealed comprehensive catalogue of potential HCV derived CTL epitopes from viral proteome of Pakistan origin. A considerable number of predicted epitopes were found to be conserved in different HCV genotype. However, the number of conserved epitopes in HCV genotype 3 was significantly higher in contrast to its conservancy in HCV genotype 1 and 2. Despite of the lower conservancy in genotype 1 and 2, all the predicted epitopes have important implications in diagnostics as well as CTL-based rational vaccine design, effective for most population of the world and especially the Pakistani Population.</p

Searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack: advances in mosquito-borne arbovirus surveillance

Abstract Surveillance is critical for the prevention and control of mosquito-borne arboviruses. Detection of elevated or emergent virus activity serves as a warning system to implement appropriate actions to reduce outbreaks. Traditionally, surveillance of arboviruses has relied on the detection of specific antibodies in sentinel animals and/or detection of viruses in pools of mosquitoes collected using a variety of sampling methods. These methods, although immensely useful, have limitations, including the need for a cold chain for sample transport, cross-reactivity between related viruses in serological assays, the requirement for specialized equipment or infrastructure, and overall expense. Advances have recently been made on developing new strategies for arbovirus surveillance. These strategies include sugar-based surveillance, whereby mosquitoes are collected in purpose-built traps and allowed to expectorate on nucleic acid preservation cards which are submitted for virus detection. New diagnostic approaches, such as next-generation sequencing, have the potential to expand the genetic information obtained from samples and aid in virus discovery. Here, we review the advancement of arbovirus surveillance systems over the past decade. Some of the novel approaches presented here have already been validated and are currently being integrated into surveillance programs. Other strategies are still at the experimental stage, and their feasibility in the field is yet to be evaluated