SPADE web service for prediction of allergen IgE epitopes

The specific interaction of allergens with IgE antibodies and the allergen mediated cross-linking of receptor-bound IgE are key events of allergic diseases. The elucidation of the IgE binding sites (the epitopes) on the allergen surface is an important goal of allergy research. Only few allergen-specific IgE epitopes have been determined experimentally to date. Epitope prediction methods represent a viable alternative to experimental methods and have worked well with linear epitopes. However, as most IgE epitopes are of conformational and/or discontinuous nature sequence based prediction methods have had limited success in these cases. Here, we present the web server of the program SPADE (https://spade.uni-graz.at), which is the server implementation of a previously published program (1). In this approach we utilize the structural homology of cross-reactive allergens combined with the immunological cross-reactivity data for the discrimination of putative IgE-binding sites from non-cross-reactive surface patches. The method, although predictive, does not rely on machine-learning algorithms and does not require training data. The SPADE server features an easy-to-use interface, an automated pipeline consisting of third-party, as well as own, newly developed routines and a comprehensive output page.