epiGPTope: A Machine Learning-Based Epitope Generator and Classifier

Epitopes are short antigenic peptide sequences that are recognized by antibodies or immune cell receptors. These are central to the development of immunotherapies, vaccines, and diagnostics. However, the rational design of synthetic epitope libraries is challenging due to the large combinatorial sequence space, 20ⁿ combinations for linear epitopes of n amino acids, making screening and testing unfeasible, even with high throughput experimental techniques. In this study, we present a large language model, epiGPTope, pretrained on protein data and specifically fine-tuned on linear epitopes, which, for the first time, can directly generate novel epitope-like sequences, which are found to possess statistical properties analogous to the ones of known epitopes. This generative approach can be used to prepare libraries of epitope candidate sequences. We further train statistical classifiers to predict whether an epitope sequence is of bacterial or viral origin, thus narrowing the candidate library and increasing the likelihood of identifying specific epitopes. We propose that such a combination of generative and predictive models can be of assistance in epitope discovery. The approach uses only primary amino acid sequences of linear epitopes, bypassing the need for a geometric framework or handcrafted features of the sequences. By developing a method to create biologically feasible sequences, we anticipate faster and more cost-effective generation and screening of synthetic epitopes with relevant applications in the development of new biotechnologies.