Prospecção in silico de proteína para diagnóstico multiepítopo de Hanseníase.

Abstract

Leprosy is caused by Mycobacterium leprae and M. lepromatosis, both non- cultivable bacteria. It affects primarily low-income countries and may take up to 10 years to show any clinical signs, which is how physicians diagnose it. To tackle this issue, we propose here a multi-epitope protein for its diagnosis. We retrieved 22 proteins from NCBI and, using bioinformatics tools, predicted the best epitopes for B and T cells on these proteins. After multiple filtering and scores analysis we ended up with 29 epitopes, which were than merged into one construct. Its secondary and tertiary structure were also predicted and refined to comprise the amino acid residues in the best conformation possible. The multi-epitope protein constructed is stable, does not have any homology with human proteome nor is allergenic or toxic. It has two conformational B cell epitopes and has the potential to elicit IFN-γ, IL-4 and IL-10 secretion. With results in both the humoral and cellular response, this protein will be able to diagnose leprosy without much difficult due to the detection of both ends of its spectrum.