Use of the averaged mutation rate in pieces of protein sequences to predict the location of antigenic determinants.

Antigenic determinants in proteins show properties, which can be used to their prediction: high degree of accessibility, mobility, polarity etc. Furthermore, there is a remarkable correlation between the location of antigenic determinants and regions with high frequency of accepted mutations during the evolution. Consequently, it is possible to predict successfully the location of antigenic epitopes in proteins using the averaged mutation rate of protein sequence pieces.