bioinformatics and multiepitope dna immunization to design rational snake antivenom生物信息学和multiepitope dna免疫设计合理的蛇抗蛇毒素.pdf

PLoS MEDICINE Bioinformatics and Multiepitope DNA Immunization to Design Rational Snake Antivenom * Simon C. Wagstaff , Gavin D. Laing, R. David G. Theakston, Christina Papaspyridis, Robert A. Harrison Alistair Reid Venom Research Unit, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, Liverpool, United Kingdom Funding: Funding for this work was A B S T R A C T provided by a Wellcome Trust project grant to SCW and RAH Background (072426). Competing Interests: The authors Snake venom is a potentially lethal and complex mixture of hundreds of functionally diverse have declared that no competing proteins that are difficult to purify and hence difficult to characterize. These difficulties have interests exist. inhibited the development of toxin-targeted therapy, and conventional antivenom is still Academic Editor: Ken Winkel, generated from the sera of horses or sheep immunized with whole venom. Although life- University of Melbourne, Australia saving, antivenoms contain an immunoglobulin pool of unknown antigen specificity and Citation: Wagstaff SC, Laing GD, known redundancy, which necessitates the delivery of large volumes of heterologous Theakston RDG, Papaspyridis C, immunoglobulin to the envenomed victim, thus increasing the risk of anaphylactoid and serum Harrison RA (2006) Bioinformatics sickness adverse effects. Here we exploit recent molecular sequence analysis and DNA and multiepitope DNA immunization to design rational immunization tools to design more rational toxin-targeted antivenom. snake antivenom. PLoS Med 3(6): e184. DOI: 10.1371/