CHINESE JOURNAL OF PARASITOLOGY AND PARASITIC DISEASES ›› 2017, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (6): 554-558.

• ORGINAL ARTICLE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Prediction and identification of B cell epitopes of lactate dehydrogenase of Echinococcus granulosus

Shuai YAN1,2, Ping YAN1, Xiao-jin MO2, Bin XU2, Ting ZHANG2,*(), Wei HU2, Ruo-ting ZHAN1, Ping YE3   

  1. 1 Research Center of Chinese Herbal Resource Science and Engineering, Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine; Key Laboratory of Chinese Medicinal Resource from Lingnan(Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine),Ministry of Education; Joint Laboratory of National Engineering Research Center for the Pharmaceutics of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Guangzhou, 510006, China
    2 National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, WHO Collaborating Center for Tropical Diseases, National Center for International Research on Tropical Diseases, Key Laboratory of Parasite and Vector Biology of the Chinese Ministry of Health, Shanghai 200025, China
    3 Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Garzê, Kangding 626000, China];
  • Received:2017-06-02 Online:2017-12-30 Published:2018-01-10
  • Contact: Ting ZHANG E-mail:tinazhang2007@163.com
  • Supported by:
    Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.81201315);the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(No.2014M551331) and the National Science and Technology Major Project of China(No.2012ZX10004220)

Abstract:

Objective To predict and identify B cell epitopes of lactate dehydrogenase of Echinococcus granulosus(EgLDH), in order to advance the development of highly specific and sensitive diagnostic method for echinococcosis.Methods ESPript 3.0 online program and IEDB software was used to predict secondary structure, β-fold, Emini Surface Accessibility, Karplus & Schulz Flexibility, Kolaskar & Tongaonkar Antigenicity, Parker Hydrophilicity and Bepipred Linear Epitope of EgLDH.Based on the prediction, potential epitopes were synthesized in vitro to assess their diagnostic efficacy using ELISA.The sensitivity, specificity and cross-reactivity were evaluated using sera from patients with echinococcosis, cysticercosis and healthy participants.Cystic fluid antigen was the control.Results The predicted secondary structure of EgLDH was composed of 37.16% α-helix, 9.67% β-fold and 53.17% random coil, with four transmembrane domains.Seven potential B cell epitopes were predicted, of which four were synthesized, i.e.peptides PP-1(215-228), PP-2 (189-200), PP-4 (79-89) and PP-7 (21-33), with a sensitivity of 52.9%(18/34), 61.8%(21/34), 82.3%(28/34) and 50.0%(17/34), respectively, to sera from patients with echinococcosis.There were significant differences between PP-4 and PP-1, PP-2 as well as PP-7(χ2 = 8.100, 5.143, 9.091, P < 0.05).The sensitivity of cystic fluid antigen was 91.1% (31/34), which was significantly different from those of PP-1, PP-2 and PP-7 (χ2 = 9.600, 5.780, 10.530, P < 0.05), but not PP-4 (χ2 = 0.444, P > 0.05).The specificity to normal serum was 100% (21/21), 100% (21/21), 95% (20/21) and 95% (20/21), respectively, all comparable to that of cystic fluid antigen (95%, 20/21).The cross-reactivity to cysticercosis was 0, 1/10, 2/10 and 2/10, respectively, while that of the cystic fluid antigen was 5/10.Conclusion The PP-4 epitope of EgLDH B-cell shows a high sensitivity and specificity to sera from patients with echinococcosis and may be a potential diagnostic antigen for hydatid disease.

Key words: Echinococcus granulosus, Lactate dehydrogenase, Epitopes, Prediction, Diagnosis

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