Patent ID: 9670256
Date: 2017-06-06
CPC Classifications: A61K,C07K,G01N,Y02A

Claim:
1. An immunogenic composition comprising a fusion peptide molecule and a pharmaceutical carrier, said immunogenic composition being able to confer at least partial protection against infection with a pathogenic helminth, wherein the fusion peptide molecule is obtained according to a method comprising: (i) selecting a region of a parent protein that contains amino acid residues that are spatially close in the three-dimensional structure but distant in the amino acid sequence and which form discontinuous epitopes, wherein the parent protein is a Sm14 protein or a related Fatty Acid Binding Protein (FABP) from a helminth pathogen; (ii) giving priority to maintaining epitopic amino acid residues predicted to be responsible for stimulating the desired immunogenic response, within the selected peptide sequence; (iii) elaborating sequences which are of limited size varying from 8 to 28 amino acid residues and which maintain at least some of the previously predicted epitopic residues; (iv) choosing at least two peptides from the elaborated sequences that correspond to regions that are distant in the primary structure (amino acid sequence) but spatially close in the tertiary (three-dimensional) structure of the parent protein, wherein said regions are chosen on the basis that the three-dimensional structure indicates that they can be readily fused assuming that they retain their original structures; and (v) constructing the fusion peptide molecule comprising the chosen at least two peptides in step (iv).