The study of the humoral immune response to infectious and chronic diseases is important for understanding the disease progression, identification of protective antigens, vaccine development, and discovery of biomarkers for early diagnosis. Proteomic approaches, including serological proteome analysis (SERPA), have been used to identify the repertoire of immunoreactive proteins in various diseases. In this chapter, we provide an outline of the SERPA approach, using the analysis of sera from mice vaccinated with a live attenuated tularemia vaccine as an example.
Keywords: Antigens; Biomarkers; Comparative immunoproteomics; Francisella; Immunoproteomics; Immunoreactivity; Live vaccine strain; SERPA; Serological proteome analysis; Tularemia; Western blotting.