Epitope predictions

Epitopes or antigenic determinants are regions of proteins that can trigger a cellular immune response mediated by T or B cells. T cell epitopes are usually protein antigen-derived peptides presented by MHC molecules on antigen-presenting cells and recognized by T-cell receptors. B cell epitopes are either peptides or protein surface residues that bind to an antibody. Since epitopes are central to vaccine design, infectious disease prevention, disease diagnosis and treatment we discuss and analyze computational approaches to predict epitopes. Epitope prediction reduces time and cost to arrive from a protein sequence at a vaccine, diagnostic or therapeutic peptide or protein.