Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 8, 2025

Development of a Backbone Cyclic Peptide Library as Potential Antiparasitic Therapeutics Using Microwave Irradiation
08:48

Development of a Backbone Cyclic Peptide Library as Potential Antiparasitic Therapeutics Using Microwave Irradiation

Published on: January 26, 2016

12.2K

Medical, Genomic, and Evolutionary Aspects of the Peptide Sharing between Pathogens, Primates, and Humans

Darja Kanduc1, Yehuda Shoenfeld2,3

  • 1Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies, and Biopharmaceutics, University of Bari, Bari, Italy.

Global Medical Genetics
|September 17, 2020
PubMed

Insights

Pathogens share more peptides with humans than primates, suggesting primates are unreliable models for immunotherapy testing. This finding offers insights into human evolution and autoimmune disease origins.

Area of Science:

  • Genomics
  • Immunology
  • Evolutionary Biology

Background:

  • Molecular mimicry between pathogens and host proteomes can trigger autoimmune responses.
  • Understanding these interactions is crucial for developing effective immunotherapies and vaccines.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare peptide sharing between infectious pathogens and various mammalian proteomes.
  • To assess the reliability of nonhuman primates as animal models for preclinical immunotherapy testing.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of heptapeptide sharing across mammalian and pathogen proteomes.
  • Evaluation of peptide sharing levels between pathogens and human, murine, rat, and nonhuman primate proteomes.

Main Results:

  • Highest heptapeptide sharing observed between pathogens and human, murine, and rat proteomes.
  • Minimal to absent peptide sharing between pathogens and nonhuman primate proteomes (gorilla, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque).

Conclusions:

  • Nonhuman primates may be unreliable models for predicting autoimmune events in immunotherapy preclinical testing.
  • Disparate peptide sharing suggests differing evolutionary mechanisms of pathogen sequence integration in mammals.
  • Investigating why humans acquired pathogen sequences while primates did not is key to understanding human origins and autoimmune diseases.
Keywords:
autoimmunitycross-reactivitynonhuman primatespeptide sharingpreclinical tests

More Related Videos

Peptide-based Identification of Functional Motifs and their Binding Partners14:28

Peptide-based Identification of Functional Motifs and their Binding Partners

Published on: June 30, 2013

12.8K
Stability and Structure of Bat Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I with Heterologous β2-Microglobulin11:17

Stability and Structure of Bat Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I with Heterologous β2-Microglobulin

Published on: March 10, 2021

6.7K

Related Concept Videos

Synteny and Evolution02:31

Synteny and Evolution

John H. Renwick first coined the term “synteny” in 1971, which refers to the genes present on the same chromosomes, even if they are not genetically linked. The species with common ancestry tend to show conserved syntenic regions. Therefore, the concept of synteny is nowadays used to describe the evolutionary relationship between species.
Around 80 million years ago, the human and mice lineages diverged from the common ancestor. During the course of evolution, the ancestral...
3.6K
Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons02:54

Evolutionary Relationships through Genome Comparisons

Genome comparison is one of the excellent ways to interpret the evolutionary relationships between organisms. The basic principle of genome comparison is that if two species share a common feature, it is likely encoded by the DNA sequence conserved between both species. The advent of genome sequencing technologies in the late 20th century enabled scientists to understand the concept of conservation of domains between species and helped them to deduce evolutionary relationships across diverse...
6.7K
Viral Mutations00:36

Viral Mutations

A mutation is a change in the sequence of bases of DNA or RNA in a genome. Some mutations occur during replication of the genome due to errors made by the polymerase enzymes that replicate DNA or RNA. Unlike DNA polymerase, RNA polymerase is prone to errors because it is not capable of “proofreading” its work. Viruses with RNA-based genomes, like HIV, therefore accrue mutations faster than viruses with DNA-based genomes. Because mutation and recombination provide the raw material...
38.9K
Viral Recombination00:57

Viral Recombination

Cells are sometimes infected by more than one virus at once. When two viruses disassemble to expose their genomes for replication in the same cell, similar regions of their genomes can pair together and exchange sequences in a process called recombination. Alternatively, viruses with segmented genomes can swap segments in a process called reassortment.
24.6K
Signal Sequences and Sorting Receptors01:41

Signal Sequences and Sorting Receptors

Signal sequences are short amino acid sequences that guide newly synthesized proteins to their proper location within the cell. Classical signal sequences are fifteen to sixty amino acids long and present at the N-terminus of a polypeptide chain. Each signal sequence has a conserved segment of basic residues towards their N terminus, a hydrophobic core, and a C-terminus rich in polar residues. The C-terminus also contains a signal cleavage site and features a -3 -1 sequence motif. The -3-1...
13.5K
Modern Molecular Taxonomy01:29

Modern Molecular Taxonomy

Advancements in molecular biology have revolutionized the identification and characterization of bacteria, with multiple methods leveraging DNA sequencing for enhanced precision. As sequencing technologies improve and costs decline, these approaches are increasingly used in clinical, environmental, and evolutionary studies.Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) examines several housekeeping genes, essential chromosomal genes encoding cellular functions, to distinguish strains. Approximately...
437