Computational analysis of proteome of H5N1 avian influenza virus to define T cell epitopes with vaccine potential.

The existing vaccines against influenza are based on the generation of neutralizing antibody primarily directed against surface proteins - hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. In this work, we have computationally defined conserved T cell epitopes of proteins of influenza virus H5N1 to help in the design of a vaccine with haplotype specificity for a target population. The peptides from the proteome of H5N1 virus which are predicted to bind to different HLAs, do not show similarity with peptides of human proteome and are also identified to be generated by proteolytic cleavage. These peptides could be made use of in the design of either a DNA vaccine or a subunit vaccine against influenza.