An epitope, also known as antigenic determinant, is the part of an antigen that is recognized by the immune system, specifically by antibodies, B cells, or T cells. The part of an antibody that binds to the epitope is called a paratope. Although epitopes are usually non-self proteins, sequences derived from the host that can be recognized (as in the case of autoimmune diseases) are also epitopes.[1]
The epitopes of protein antigens are divided into two categories, conformational epitopes and linear epitopes, based on their structure and interaction with the paratope.[2] Conformational and linear epitopes interact with the paratope based on the 3-D conformation adopted by the epitope, which is determined by the surface features of the involved epitope residues and the shape or tertiary structure of other segments of the antigen. A conformational epitope is formed by the 3-D conformation adopted by the interaction of discontiguous amino acid residues. In contrast, a linear epitope is formed by the 3-D conformation adopted by the interaction of contiguous amino acid residues. A linear epitope is not determined solely by the primary structure of the involved amino acids. Residues that flank such amino acid residues, as well as more distant amino acid residues of the antigen affect the ability of the primary structure residues to adopt the epitope's 3-D conformation.[3][4][5][6][7] 90% of epitopes are conformational.[8]
^Mahmoudi Gomari, Mohammad; Saraygord-Afshari, Neda; Farsimadan, Marziye; Rostami, Neda; Aghamiri, Shahin; Farajollahi, Mohammad M. (1 December 2020). "Opportunities and challenges of the tag-assisted protein purification techniques: Applications in the pharmaceutical industry". Biotechnology Advances. 45: 107653. doi:10.1016/j.biotechadv.2020.107653. PMID 33157154. S2CID 226276355.
^Huang J, Honda W (April 2006). "CED: a conformational epitope database". BMC Immunology. 7: 7. doi:10.1186/1471-2172-7-7. PMC 1513601. PMID 16603068.
^Anfinsen CB (July 1973). "Principles that govern the folding of protein chains". Science. 181 (4096): 223–230. Bibcode:1973Sci...181..223A. doi:10.1126/science.181.4096.223. PMID 4124164.
^Bergmann CC, Tong L, Cua R, Sensintaffar J, Stohlman S (August 1994). "Differential effects of flanking residues on presentation of epitopes from chimeric peptides". Journal of Virology. 68 (8): 5306–5310. doi:10.1128/JVI.68.8.5306-5310.1994. PMC 236480. PMID 7518534.
^Bergmann CC, Yao Q, Ho CK, Buckwold SL (October 1996). "Flanking residues alter antigenicity and immunogenicity of multi-unit CTL epitopes". Journal of Immunology. 157 (8): 3242–3249. PMID 8871618.
^Briggs S, Price MR, Tendler SJ (1993). "Fine specificity of antibody recognition of carcinoma-associated epithelial mucins: antibody binding to synthetic peptide epitopes". European Journal of Cancer. 29A (2): 230–237. doi:10.1016/0959-8049(93)90181-E. PMID 7678496.
^Craig L, Sanschagrin PC, Rozek A, Lackie S, Kuhn LA, Scott JK (August 1998). "The role of structure in antibody cross-reactivity between peptides and folded proteins". Journal of Molecular Biology. 281 (1): 183–201. doi:10.1006/jmbi.1998.1907. PMID 9680484.
^Ferdous, Saba; Kelm, Sebastian; Baker, Terry S.; Shi, Jiye; Martin, Andrew C. R. (1 October 2019). "B-cell epitopes: Discontinuity and conformational analysis". Molecular Immunology. 114: 643–650. doi:10.1016/j.molimm.2019.09.014. PMID 31546099. S2CID 202747810.
An epitope, also known as antigenic determinant, is the part of an antigen that is recognized by the immune system, specifically by antibodies, B cells...
Epitope binning is a competitive immunoassay used to characterize and then sort a library of monoclonal antibodies against a target protein. Antibodies...
In immunology, cryptic self epitopes are a source of autoimmunity. Self epitopes, which are found in high concentration on the surface of antigen-presenting...
In immunology, epitope mapping is the process of experimentally identifying the binding site, or epitope, of an antibody on its target antigen (usually...
In immunology, a conformational epitope is a sequence of sub-units (usually amino acids) composing an antigen that come in direct contact with a receptor...
In immunology, a linear epitope (also sequential epitope) is an epitope—a binding site on an antigen—that is recognized by antibodies by its linear sequence...
methods of antigen retrieval are heat-mediated epitope retrieval (HIER) and proteolytic induced epitope retrieval (PIER). In PIER, enzymes including Proteinase...
an antigen is called an epitope. There have been efforts in epitope mapping since many antibodies can bind the same epitope and levels of binding between...
constitutes an epitope. Most antigens have the potential to be bound by multiple antibodies, each of which is specific to one of the antigen's epitopes. Using...
antigen is recognized and attacked through its overlapping parts, called epitopes, by multiple clones of B cell. In the course of normal immune response...
Peptide-based synthetic vaccines (epitope vaccines) are subunit vaccines made from peptides. The peptides mimic the epitopes of the antigen that triggers direct...
self-tolerance. Epitope spreading or epitope drift – when the immune reaction changes from targeting the primary epitope to also targeting other epitopes. In contrast...
the same epitope (the part of an antigen that is recognized by the antibody). In contrast, polyclonal antibodies bind to multiple epitopes and are usually...
these "peptide mimic" specific T or B cells can cross-react with self-epitopes, thus leading to tissue pathology (autoimmunity). Molecular mimicry is...
T cell epitope immunogenicity is the binding strength of T cell epitopes to major histocompatibility complexes (MHC or HLA) molecules. Epitopes with higher...
contains a paratope (analogous to a lock) that is specific for one particular epitope (analogous to a key) on an antigen, allowing these two structures to bind...
cell-mediated immunity. Epitopes that are not targeted or targeted to a lower degree during an immune response are known as subdominant epitopes. The impact of...
allows it to bind to only one epitope with high affinity and as a result, each B cell can only respond to one epitope. The paratopes on B-cell receptors...
displays a small peptide (a molecular fraction of a protein) called an epitope. The presented self-antigens prevent an organism's immune system from targeting...
intestinal transglutaminase, has a high density of overlapping T-cell epitopes. This increases the likelihood that the DQ2 isoform will bind, and stay...
The Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB) is a project hosted by scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology (LIAI)...
A cryptotope is an antigenic site or epitope hidden in a protein or virion by surface subunits. Cryptotopes are antigenically active only after the dissociation...
antibody's binding sites (epitopes) on the target protein is referred to as "epitope mapping." Finding the binding epitope of an antibody is essential...
are extremely specific, with all BCRs on a B cell recognizing the same epitope. B cells develop from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that originate from...
Global Information