The promise of reverse vaccinology

Reverse vaccinology (RV) is a computational approach that aims to identify putative vaccine candidates in the protein coding genome (proteome) of pathogens. RV has primarily been applied to bacterial pathogens to identify proteins that can be formulated into subunit vaccines, which consist of one or more protein antigens. An RV approach based on a filtering method has already been used to construct a subunit vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B that is now registered in several countries (Bexsero). Recently, machine learning methods have been used to improve the ability of RV approaches to identify vaccine candidates. Further improvements related to the incorporation of epitope-binding annotation and gene expression data are discussed. In the future, it is envisaged that RV approaches will facilitate rapid vaccine design with less reliance on conventional animal testing and clinical trials in order to curb the threat of antibiotic resistance or newly emerged outbreaks of bacterial origin.