Reverse vaccinology

Reverse vaccinology is an improvement on vaccinology that employs bioinformatics, pioneered by Rino Rappuoli and first used against Serogroup B meningococcus. Since then, it has been used on several other bacterial vaccines. Reverse vaccinology is an improvement on vaccinology that employs bioinformatics, pioneered by Rino Rappuoli and first used against Serogroup B meningococcus. Since then, it has been used on several other bacterial vaccines. The basic idea behind reverse vaccinology is that an entire pathogenic genome can be screened using bioinformatics approaches to find genes. Some of the traits that the genes are monitored for that may indicate antigenicity include genes that code for proteins with extracellular localization, signal peptides, and B-cell epitopes. Next, those genes are filtered for desirable attributes that would make good vaccine targets such as outer membrane proteins. Once the candidates are identified, they are produced synthetically and are screened in animal models of the infection.