Patent ID: 7657378

Claim:
A computer-based method for identifying conserved peptide motifs useful as drug targets for use in a host organism, wherein said method comprises the steps of: i) computationally generating using one or more computer processors overlapping peptide sequences of length ‘N’ from selected pathogenic organisms using a peptide library creating software program (PEPLIB), ii) computationally sorting the peptide sequences of length ‘N’ according to amino acid sequence, iii) computationally matching using one or more computer processors the sorted peptide sequences of length ‘N’ of the selected pathogenic organisms to produce exactly matched common peptide sequences using a peptide library matching software program (PEPLIMP), iv) computationally locating the matched common peptide sequences in their corresponding protein sequences to provide locations of said matched common peptide sequences and subsequently labeling the matched common peptide sequences with their origin and location using a peptide extraction software program (PEPEXTRACT); v) computationally joining overlapping common peptide sequences to obtain extended conserved peptide sequences using a peptide stitching software program (PEPSTITCH); vi) comparing said extended conserved peptide sequences obtained in step (v) to host organism protein sequences to identify conserved peptide sequences from said selected pathogenic organisms which are not present in host proteins; and vii) communicating said conserved peptide sequences from said selected pathogenic organisms not present in said host proteins to a user to obtain conserved peptide motifs useful as drug targets for use in a host organism, wherein all of said steps are performed on a computer.