Patent ID: 8321143

Claim:
A method for constructing a fusion peptide molecule on the basis of the three-dimensional structures of homologous molecules, wherein said fusion peptide molecule is able to mimic or prevent the interaction between a helminth pathogen antigen and a receptor molecule of a host immune system, said method consisting of: (i) selecting a region of a parent protein that contains residues that are spatially close in the three-dimensional structure but distant in the amino acid sequence and which form discontinuous epitopes; (ii) giving priority to maintaining epitopic residues predicted to be responsible for stimulating the desired immuno/antigenic response, within the selected peptide sequence; (iii) elaborating sequences which are of limited size varying from 8 to 28 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).