Using Immunopeptidomics and Immunoinformatics to Identify Novel Antigens for Subunit Vaccines for Tuberculosis

Salem Almujri1,2, Paulo Bettencourt1, Iman Satti1, Nicola Ternette1, Helen McShane1

1. The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, UK.
2. College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, KSA.

• Tuberculosis (TB) accounts for more mortality than other infectious diseases in the world. BCG, the only licensed vaccine against TB, offers variable protection.
• As an urgent need for an effective vaccine against TB, we employed immunopeptidomics and immunoinformatics to identify and prioritise novel mycobacterial antigens.
• By using infected macrophages, as an in vitro model of TB, followed by LC-MS/MS analysis to identify mycobacterial peptides presented by MHC molecules, we successfully identified novel antigens derived from BCG and MTB.
• These antigens were further prioritised in silico using immunoinformatics tools, resulting in a list of top potential protective antigens. The selected antigens will next be tested in vivo in murine challenge experiments.