Applying bioinformatics for antibody epitope prediction using affinity-selected mimotopes – relevance for vaccine design

To properly characterize protective polyclonal antibody responses, it is necessary to examine epitope specificity. Most antibody epitopes are conformational in nature and, thus, cannot be identified using synthetic linear peptides. Cyclic peptides can function as mimetics of conformational epitopes (termed mimotopes), thereby providing targets, which can be selected by immunoaffinity purification. However, the management of large collections of …