Michael Szardenings
Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Germany
Title: Epitope mapping of the human immunome directly from sera
Biography
Biography: Michael Szardenings
Abstract
Mapping of antibody epitopes with standard peptide phage display is a common but not always really satisfying approach. Refinement of library parameters for and application of deep sequencing in combination with a novel software analysis tool results in epitope information based on hundreds or more sequences presenting epitope/mimotope variations. The approach does not require more than 2 selection rounds and can be run in a relatively short time. Even when applied to sera we observe significant enrichment of motifs disease related antibody epitopes. These can all be retrieved from a single set of data obtained from a single phage display experiment with 1-2 µl serum. Due to the statistic approach based on short motifs of 3-4 amino acids structural motifs are also revealed.
This detailed epitope/mimotope information can be used to generate peptides for various applications. This presentation will deal with the immunodiagnostic tools that can be generated from our data. We are able to generate arrays that enable for the first time an individualized analysis of a patient’s immune response even towards individual cross reactive proteins. In the case of allergies it allows us to determine potential cross reactivity to related species, since an individual epitope’s cross reactivity can be predicted from sequence alignments.
The technology is today well enough established to approach larger projects like our present efforts to map most major food allergens or the identification of markers for virus serotypes.