Computational Prediction of the Epitopes of HA1 Protein of Influenza Viruses to its Neutralizing Antibodies

Xiaoyan Zeng; Fiona S Legge; Chao Huang; Xiao Zhang; Yongjun Jiao; Herbert R Treutlein; Jun Zeng

doi:10.3390/antib8010002

Computational Prediction of the Epitopes of HA1 Protein of Influenza Viruses to its Neutralizing Antibodies

Antibodies (Basel). 2018 Dec 20;8(1):2. doi: 10.3390/antib8010002.

Authors

Xiaoyan Zeng¹, Fiona S Legge², Chao Huang³, Xiao Zhang⁴, Yongjun Jiao⁵, Herbert R Treutlein⁶, Jun Zeng⁷

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Pathogenic Microbiology, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Key Laboratory of Enteric Pathogenic Microbiology, Ministry of Health, Nanjing 210009, China. zengxiaoyan6164@sina.com.
² MedChemSoft Solutions, Level 3, 2 Brandon Park Drive, Wheelers Hill, VIC 3150, Australia. suelegge@gmail.com.
³ Institute of Pathogenic Microbiology, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Key Laboratory of Enteric Pathogenic Microbiology, Ministry of Health, Nanjing 210009, China. nestar1987@126.com.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Antibody Technique, Ministry Health, Nanjing 210029, China. zhangxiao@njmu.edu.cn.
⁵ Institute of Pathogenic Microbiology, Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Key Laboratory of Enteric Pathogenic Microbiology, Ministry of Health, Nanjing 210009, China. yongjunjiao@jscdc.cn.
⁶ Sanoosa Pty Ltd., Level 30, 35 Collins Street, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia. herbertin@gmail.com.
⁷ MedChemSoft Solutions, Level 3, 2 Brandon Park Drive, Wheelers Hill, VIC 3150, Australia. Jun.Zeng@medchemsoft.com.

Abstract

In this work, we have used a new method to predict the epitopes of HA1 protein of influenza virus to several antibodies HC19, CR9114, BH151 and 4F5. While our results reproduced the binding epitopes of H3N2 or H5N1 for the neutralizing antibodies HC19, CR9114, and BH151 as revealed from the available crystal structures, additional epitopes for these antibodies were also suggested. Moreover, the predicted epitopes of H5N1 HA1 for the newly developed antibody 4F5 are located at the receptor binding domain, while previous study identified a region 76-WLLGNP-81 as the epitope. The possibility of antibody recognition of influenza virus via different mechanism by binding to different epitopes of an antigen is also discussed.

Keywords: antibodies; computational chemistry; epitope mapping; multiple copy simultaneous search.

Abstract

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