Epitopia: a web-server for predicting B-cell epitopes.

TitleEpitopia: a web-server for predicting B-cell epitopes.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2009
AuthorsRubinstein ND, Mayrose I, Martz E, Pupko T
JournalBMC Bioinformatics
Volume10
Pagination287
Date Published2009
ISSN1471-2105
KeywordsAlgorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Biology, Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte, Internet, Software
Abstract

BACKGROUND: Detecting candidate B-cell epitopes in a protein is a basic and fundamental step in many immunological applications. Due to the impracticality of experimental approaches to systematically scan the entire protein, a computational tool that predicts the most probable epitope regions is desirable.

RESULTS: The Epitopia server is a web-based tool that aims to predict immunogenic regions in either a protein three-dimensional structure or a linear sequence. Epitopia implements a machine-learning algorithm that was trained to discern antigenic features within a given protein. The Epitopia algorithm has been compared to other available epitope prediction tools and was found to have higher predictive power. A special emphasis was put on the development of a user-friendly graphical interface for displaying the results.

CONCLUSION: Epitopia is a user-friendly web-server that predicts immunogenic regions for both a protein structure and a protein sequence. Its accuracy and functionality make it a highly useful tool. Epitopia is available at http://epitopia.tau.ac.il and includes extensive explanations and example predictions.

DOI10.1186/1471-2105-10-287
Alternate JournalBMC Bioinformatics
PubMed ID19751513