Prediction on Antigenic Epitope Characteristics of Bt Cry2Ab Protein in Transgenic Crops

Abstract [Objective] This study aimed to predict the structural characteristics of Bt Cry2Ab protein in transgenic crops with bioinformatic analysis to provide the theoreti- cal clues for design of antibody Cry2Ab. [Method] The amino acid sequence of Cry2Ab protein was searched from NCBI database. The B cell epitopes were pre- dicted with DNAStar. The binding affinity between Cry2Ab protein and MHC-II molecules was analyzed with NetMHCII 2.2 Server to predict the T cell epitopes. [Result] Prediction result suggested the potential B cell epitope of Cry2Ab locating in the region of 208-215. Analysis of the binding affinity between Cry2Ab and MHC-II molecules suggested the regions of 177-185, 299-307 and 255-263 were the po- tential T cell epitopes. Human with HLA-DRB10101 alleles and HLA-DRB10701 al- leles were more sensitive to Cry2Ab protein. [Conclusion] This study facilitates to un- derstand the structural characteristics of Cry2Ab protein and provides a new clue to improve the assessment method for potential allergenicity of genetically modified food.