METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR IDENTIFYING ONE OR MORE CANDIDATE REGIONS OF ONE OR MORE SOURCE PROTEINS THAT ARE PREDICTED TO INSTIGATE AN IMMUNOGENIC RESPONSE, AND METHOD FOR CREATING A VACCINE

摘要

A computer-implemented method of identifying one or more candidate regions of one or more source proteins that are predicted to instigate an adaptive immunogenic response across a plurality of human leukocyte antigen, HLA, types, wherein the one or more source proteins has an amino acid sequence is disclosed. The method comprises (a) accessing the amino acid sequence of the one or more source proteins; (b) accessing a set of HLA types; (c) predicting an immunogenic potential of a plurality of candidate epitopes within the amino acid sequence, for each of the set of HLA types; (d) dividing the amino acid sequence into a plurality of amino acid sub-sequences; (e) for each of the plurality of amino acid sub-sequences, generating a region metric that is indicative of a predicted ability of the amino acid sub-sequence to instigate an immunogenic response across the set of HLA types, wherein the region metrics are based on the predicted immunogenic potentials of the plurality of candidate epitopes, for each of the set of HLA types; and (f) applying a statistical model to identify whether any of the generated region metrics are statistically significant, whereby an amino acid sub-sequence identified as having a statistically significant region metric corresponds to a candidate region of the amino acid sequence that is predicted to instigate an immunogenic response across at least a subset of the set of HLA types. A corresponding system is also disclosed, as well as a method for creating a vaccine.