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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
BACKGROUND: The neutrophil activating protein (NAP) is a highly immunogenic and virulence factor of Helicobacter pylori, pre-senting inflammatory and immunomodulatory activity. Consequently, NAP has been explored as a diagnostic and therapeutictarget. However, when evaluating a target protein to design diagnostic methods or vaccines, it is critical to determine the pro-tein conservation among the bacterial population, as well the impact of alterations of amino acid residues on the protein anti-genic profile. RESULTS: In the present work, NAP conservation and theoretical antigenicity were determined among 51 sequences fromH. pylori isolated from patients worldwide. A high NAP conservation (83%) was observed, where 17 amino acid residues, amongthe 144 residues of the protein, were polymorphic. Alterations at these polymorphic sites had a theoretically low impact on pre-dicted antigenicity, where only 5 NAPs out of 51 NAPs presented a slightly different antigenic profile in relation to the consen-sus sequence. According to that, it was possible to recognize in western blotting 93% of NAP from different bacteria (n = 15) using polyclonal antibodies developed against a specific NAP. CONCLUSIONS: It was predicted that when working with polyclonal antibodies or large NAP fragments for diagnostic and vaccine design, slight variation in protein sequence will have a minimal impact on NAP recognition. However, if a NAP monoclonal
antibody or small NAP epitopes are considered, it is critical to select the most conserved and antigenic NAP regions, to maximize the coverage of NAP variants.
Description
Keywords
Helicobacter pylori NAP immunogenic genetic variability neutrophil-activating protein immunovariability
Citation
GONÇALVES, Lídia M. D.; ALMEIDA, António J.; CALADO, Cecília R. C. – Impact of neutrophil-activating protein conservation on diagnostic tests and vaccine design. Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology. eISSN 1097-4660. (2024), https://doi.org/10.1002/jctb.7755
Publisher
Wiley