Design de Medicamentos: Acesso Aberto
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Study of Hydrophobicity and Prediction of Antigenic Epitope of NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 from D. medinensis

Sonu Mishra and Virendra S. Gomase

The causative agent of the guinea worm disease – Dracunculus medinensis, which is the only species that infects human. The intermediate host Cyclops (the small water fleas) ingest the larvae of parasite (D. medinensis) which is further ingested by the human from the stagnant contaminated unfiltered water from the source. Soon after ingestion the Cyclops is disintegrated by stomach digestive juices and causes the release of the larvae. These larvae travel and penetrate the digestive wall into the body cavity and get entry in abdominal cavity and retroperitoneal space. These larvae mature in adults and soon after the copulation the ovoviviparous female mature and grows in size whereas the male dies. After incubation period of a year or year and half the mature female worm come towards the skin and start formation of a small round bulge on the skin by secreting an irritating chemical. This blister is the first sign of identification that a person has got infected by guinea worm. NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 (mitochondrion ) protein of the D. medinensis is a 527 a protein which is used for the identification of the antigenicity through B- cell epitopes prediction methods. The result obtained shows that the region of maximal hydrophilicity is likely to be antigenic site having the hydrophobic characteristics and contain the segments of low complexity and high-predicted flexibility. This predicted antigenic protein from D. medinensis could be the new paradigm of synthetic vaccine development and target validation.