Antibody recognition of Shiga toxins (Stxs): computational identification of the epitopes of Stx2 subunit A to the antibodies 11E10 and S2C4

Yongjun Jiao; Fiona S Legge; Xiaoyan Zeng; Herbert R Treutlein; Jun Zeng

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088191

Antibody recognition of Shiga toxins (Stxs): computational identification of the epitopes of Stx2 subunit A to the antibodies 11E10 and S2C4

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 5;9(2):e88191. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088191. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Yongjun Jiao¹, Fiona S Legge², Xiaoyan Zeng¹, Herbert R Treutlein³, Jun Zeng³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Pathogenic Microbiology, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Key Laboratory of Enteric Pathogenic Microbiology, Ministry Health, Nanjing, China.
² Computist Bio-Nanotech, Small Technology Clusters, Scoresby, Victoria, Australia.
³ Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University, Parkville, Victoria, Australia ; Computist Bio-Nanotech, Small Technology Clusters, Scoresby, Victoria, Australia.

Abstract

We have recently developed a new method to predict the epitopes of the antigens that are recognized by a specific antibody. In this work, we applied the method to identify the epitopes of the Shiga toxin (Stx2 subunit A) that were bound by two specific antibodies 11E10 and S2C4. The predicted epitopes of Stx2 binding to the antibody 11E10 resembles the recognition surface constructed by the regions of Stx2 identified experimentally. For the S2C4, our results indicate that the antibody recognizes the Stx2 at two different regions on the protein surface. The first region (residues 246-254: ARSVRAVNE) is similar to the recognition region of the 11E10, while the second region is formed by two epitopes. The second region is particularly significant because it includes the amino acid sequence region that is diverse between Stx2 and other Stx (residues 176-188: QREFRQALSETAPV). This new recognition region is believed to play an important role in the experimentally observed selectivity of S2C4 to the Stx2.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Amino Acid Sequence
Antibodies, Bacterial / immunology*
Computational Biology / methods*
Epitopes / chemistry
Epitopes / immunology*
Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains / chemistry
Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains / immunology
Immunoglobulin Light Chains / chemistry
Immunoglobulin Light Chains / immunology
Immunoglobulin Variable Region / chemistry
Immunoglobulin Variable Region / immunology
Models, Molecular
Molecular Sequence Data
Peptides / chemistry
Peptides / immunology
Protein Structure, Tertiary
Protein Subunits / chemistry
Protein Subunits / immunology*
Sequence Alignment
Shiga Toxin 2 / chemistry
Shiga Toxin 2 / immunology*

Substances

Antibodies, Bacterial
Epitopes
Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains
Immunoglobulin Light Chains
Immunoglobulin Variable Region
Peptides
Protein Subunits
Shiga Toxin 2

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from Jiangsu Province's Natural Science Foundation (BK2006242), Outstanding Medical Academic Leader Program (RC2011082), and National Mega-Projects for Infectious Diseases (2011ZX10004-902, 2013ZX09102029) from Ministry of Science and Technology. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.