PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Parisa Ghahremanifard
AU  - Farzaneh Afzali
AU  - Amin Rostami
AU  - Zahra Nayeri
AU  - Bijan Bambai
AU  - Zarrin Minuchehr
TI  - Designing a novel multi-epitope T vaccine for “targeting protein for Xklp-2” (TPX2) in hepatocellular carcinoma based on immunoinformatics approach
AID  - 10.1101/570952
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 570952
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/10/570952.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/03/10/570952.full
AB  - Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading cancer-related deaths worldwide. Recently, studies for HCC treatment are focused on cancer immunotherapy, particularly cancer vaccines, to complete and assist other therapies. TPX2 is a microtubule-associated protein necessary for cell division; therefore, alteration in its expression, especially up regulation, is associated with several human carcinomas such as HCC.In this study, immunoinformatics tools were used to design a rational multi-epitope T vaccine against TPX2 in HCC. Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) and Helper T lymphocytes (HTL) epitopes were predicted and Maltose-binding protein (MBP) was added to the construct as an adjuvant. Evaluation of vaccine properties was indicated that our construct is stable and immunogenic enough to induce relevant responses besides not being allergic. After predicting the tertiary structure and energy minimization, protein-protein docking was performed to calculate the free energy of possible interactions between the vaccine and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) to assure that simultaneous complementary responses would be activated by our construct. Finally, Codon optimization and in-silico cloning were performed to ensure the vaccine expression efficiency in the desired host.AbbreviationsHCCHepatocellular carcinomaMBPMaltose-binding proteinHBVhepatitis B virusHCVhepatitis C virusTACEtransarterial chemoembolizationRFAradiofrequency ablationCTLcytotoxic T lymphocytesTPX2targeting protein for Xklp-2HTLhelper T lymphocytesTSAtumor-specific antigensTAAtumor-associated antigensMHCmajor histocompatibility complexGRAVYGrand average of hydropathicityE. coliEscherichia coliJCATJava Codon Adaptation ToolCAICodon Adaptation IndexRMSDroot mean square deviation