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Updated: Jul 14, 2026
A Genetic Screen to Isolate Toxoplasma gondii Host-cell Egress Mutants
Published on: February 8, 2012
Epitope vaccine design for Toxoplasma gondii based on a genome-wide database of membrane proteins
Xuan-Wu Li1,2, Ni Zhang2, Zhuo-Lin Li2
1National Clinical Research Center for Metabolic Disease, Key Laboratory of Diabetes Immunology, Ministry of Education, and Department of Metabolism and Endocrinology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
Background:
There is presently no effective and safe vaccine for Toxoplasma gondii for humans. The study described here was designed to search for a novel group of optimal B cell and T cell epitopes from Toxoplasma membrane proteins using genome-wide comprehensive screening.
Methods:
The amino acid sequences of membrane proteins of T. gondii were obtained from the UniProt database. The ABCPred and BepiPred servers were employed to predict the linear B cell epitopes. The Immune Epitope Database (IEDB) online service was utilized to forecast T cell epitopes within T. gondii membrane proteins that bind to human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I (HLA-I) or HLA-II molecules.
Results:
From the 314 membrane proteins of T. gondii, a total of 14 linear B cell epitopes embedded in 12 membrane proteins were identified. Eight epitopes for major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I (MHC-I) molecules and 18 epitopes for MHC-II molecules were ultimately selected, for which world population coverage percentiles were 71.94% and 99.76%, respectively. The top rated combinations of linear B cell epitopes and T cell epitopes covering both BALB/c mice and a majority of the human population were identified for the development of a protective vaccine.
Conclusions:
The ultimate vaccine construct described here, which comprises B cells, MHC-I and MHC-II epitopes, might protect individuals against T. gondii infection by inducing humoral and cellular immune responses.
