CE-BLAST makes it possible to compute antigenic similarity for newly emerging pathogens

Tianyi Qiu, Yiyan Yang, Jingxuan Qiu, Yang Huang, Tianlei Xu, Han Xiao, Dingfeng Wu, Qingchen Zhang, Chen Zhou, Xiaoyan Zhang, Kailin Tang, Jianqing Xu () and Zhiwei Cao ()
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Tianyi Qiu: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Yiyan Yang: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Jingxuan Qiu: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Yang Huang: Shanghai Medical School, Fudan University
Tianlei Xu: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Han Xiao: University of Helsinki
Dingfeng Wu: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Qingchen Zhang: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Chen Zhou: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Xiaoyan Zhang: Shanghai Medical School, Fudan University
Kailin Tang: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University
Jianqing Xu: Shanghai Medical School, Fudan University
Zhiwei Cao: School of Life Sciences and Technology, Tongji University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Major challenges in vaccine development include rapidly selecting or designing immunogens for raising cross-protective immunity against different intra- or inter-subtypic pathogens, especially for the newly emerging varieties. Here we propose a computational method, Conformational Epitope (CE)-BLAST, for calculating the antigenic similarity among different pathogens with stable and high performance, which is independent of the prior binding-assay information, unlike the currently available models that heavily rely on the historical experimental data. Tool validation incorporates influenza-related experimental data sufficient for stability and reliability determination. Application to dengue-related data demonstrates high harmonization between the computed clusters and the experimental serological data, undetectable by classical grouping. CE-BLAST identifies the potential cross-reactive epitope between the recent zika pathogen and the dengue virus, precisely corroborated by experimental data. The high performance of the pathogens without the experimental binding data suggests the potential utility of CE-BLAST to rapidly design cross-protective vaccines or promptly determine the efficacy of the currently marketed vaccine against emerging pathogens, which are the critical factors for containing emerging disease outbreaks.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04171-2

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