A Potential In Silico Designed Chimeric Antigen for Precise Screening of HTLV-I and HTLV-II

Background Separate expression and purification of peptides used in the diagnosis of infection with human T-cell lymphotrophic virus-I/-II (HTLV-I/-II) infection is time-consuming and costly. Objectives The aim of this study was to develop a single chimeric protein (CA) to be used in screening for infection HTLV-I/-II. Methods HTLV-I/-II antigen fragments were connected to each other using an amino acid linker and created a chimeric protein. Secondary and tertiary structures of this protein were predicted and assessed by Z-score calculation. The DNA sequence encoding the CA was optimized according to E. coli codon usage. Results The Z-score analysis showed that the three dimensional model has high quality. Linear epitopes on proteins are separately exposed on the CA surface and hence there is a possibility of their interactions with antibodies. Based on the computational analysis, this antigen has the chance to express at high levels in E. coli cells. Conclusions Based on bioinformatics analysis of this protein, it could be a suitable candidate for screening for infection with HTLV-I/-II.