Analysis of Apical Membrane Antigen (AMA)-1 characteristics using bioinformatics tools in order to vaccine design against Plasmodium vivax.

Analysis of Apical Membrane Antigen (AMA)-1 characteristics using bioinformatics tools in order to vaccine design against Plasmodium vivax. Infect Genet Evol. 2019 Apr 03;: Authors: Jahangiri F, Jalallou N, Ebrahimi M Abstract Plasmodium vivax, an intracellular protozoan, causes malaria which is characterized by fever, anemia, respiratory distress, liver and spleen enlargement. In spite of attempts to design an efficient vaccine, there is not a vaccine against P. vivax. Notable advances have recently achieved in the development of malaria vaccines targeting the surface antigens such as Apical Membrane Antigens (AMA)-1. AMA-1 is a micronemal protein synthesized during the erythrocyte-stage of Plasmodium species and plays a significant role in the invasion process of the parasite into host cells. P. vivax AMA-1 (PvAMA-1) can induce strong cellular and humoral responses, indicating that it can be an ideal candidate of vaccine against malaria. Identification and prediction of proteins characteristics increase our knowledge about them and leads to develop vaccine and diagnostic studies. In the present study several valid bioinformatics tools were applied to analyze the various characteristics of AMA-1 such as physical and chemical properties, secondary and tertiary structures, B- cell and T-cell prediction and other important features in order to introduce potential epitopes for designing a high-efficient vaccine. The results demonstr...
Source: Infection, Genetics and Evolution - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Infect Genet Evol Source Type: research