In silico Identification of Potential Peptides or Allergen Shot Candidates Against Aspergillus fumigatus

Aspergillus fumigatus is capable of causing invasive aspergillosis or acute bronchopulmonary aspergillosis, and the current situation is alarming. There are no vaccine or allergen shots available for Aspergillus-induced allergies. Thus, a novel approach in designing of an effective vaccine or allergen shot candidate against A. fumigatus is needed. Using immunoinformatics approaches from the characterized A. fumigatus allergens, we have mapped epitopic regions to predict potential peptides that elicit both Aspergillus-specific T cells and B cell immune response. Experimentally derived immunodominant allergens were retrieved from www.allergen.org. A total of 23 allergenic proteins of A. fumigatus were retrieved. Out of 23 allergenic proteins, 13 of them showed high sequence similarity to both human and mouse counterparts and thus were eliminated from analysis due to possible cross-reactivity. Remaining allergens were subjected to T cell (major histocompatibility complex class I and II alleles) and B cell epitope prediction using immune epitope database analysis resource. Only five allergens have shown a common B and T cell epitopic region between human and mouse. They are Asp f1 {147-156 region (RVIYTYPNKV); Mitogillin}, Asp f2 {5-19 region (LRLAVLLPLAAPLVA); Hypothetical protein}, Asp f5 {305-322 region (LNNYRPSSSSLSFKY); Metalloprotease}, Asp f17 {98-106 region (AANAGGTVY); Hypothetical protein}, and Asp f34 {74-82 region (YIQDGSLYL); PhiA cell wall protein}. The epitopic region from these five allergenic proteins showed potential for development of single peptide- or multipeptide-based vaccine or allergen shots for experimental prioritization.