In silico approach for the identification of immunological properties of enolase from Trypanosoma cruzi and its possible usefulness as vaccine in Chagas disease.

Nowadays, Chagas disease is a major health problem in Latin America that has been disseminated also into non-endemic countries. Currently, a vaccine against Chagas disease does not exist. In the present study, the gene encoding Trypanosoma cruzi enolase (TcENO) was amplified, cloned, and sequenced and the recombinant protein was purified. We used in silico and an experimental assay to investigate the immunological role of TcENO. The in silico assays showed that TcENO sequence contains characteristic motifs of enolase; additionally, a transmembranal region was identified, and this could indicate the potential membrane localization of TcENO. Moreover, both B lymphocyte and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) predicted epitopes were localized; these results suggest the possibility that TcENO can develop both humoral and cellular immune responses. Furthermore, the presence of antibodies was verified by western blot assays, showing that the purified recombinant protein was detected by sera from experimentally infected mice and sera of patients with Chagas disease. These results indicate that TcENO is immunogenic and could be used as a vaccine candidate.