Abstract

This study focused on identifying the conserved epitopes in a single subtype A (H3N2)-as candidates for vaccine targets. We identified a total of 32 conserved epitopes in four viral proteins [22 HA, 4PB1, 3 NA, 3 NP]. Evaluation of conserved epitopes in coverage during 1968-2010 revealed that (1) 12 HA conserved epitopes were highly present in the circulating viruses; (2) the remaining 10 HA conserved epitopes appeared with lower percentage but a significantly increasing trend after 1989 [p<0.001]; and (3) the conserved epitopes in NA, NP and PB1 are also highly frequent in wild-type viruses. These conserved epitopes also covered an extremely high percentage of the 16 vaccine strains during the 42 year period. The identification of highly conserved epitopes using our approach can also be applied to develop broad-spectrum vaccines.

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Publisher Full Text

Authors

Wu KW, Chien CY, Li SW, King CC, Chang CH

Institution

Institute of BioMedical Informatics, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Source

Genomics 100:2 2012 Aug pg 102-9

MeSH

Cluster Analysis
Epitopes
Humans
Influenza A Virus, H3N2 Subtype
Influenza Vaccines
Influenza, Human
Sequence Analysis
Viral Proteins

Pub Type(s)

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

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22698979