Patent ID: 7906292

Claim:
A method for identifying a flavivirus cross-reactive epitope, comprising: performing structure-based design analysis to identify a wild type candidate epitope, said analysis comprising: identifying at least one conserved flavivirus E-glycoprotein amino acid between two or more flavivirus groups or subgroups or between two or more flavivirus complexes or subcomplexes; mapping the conserved flavivirus amino acid onto a structure of a flavivirus E-glycoprotein; and identifying from among the at least one conserved flavivirus E-glycoprotein amino acids at least one amino acid with characteristics comprising: it is conserved across the flaviviruses; it is on the outer or lateral surface of the E-glycoprotein dimer; it has at least 35% surface accessibility potential; and its side chain projection is accessible for antibody paratopes; selecting the wild type candidate epitope identified by the structure-based design analysis; designing a substituted epitope comprising at least one amino acid residue substitution compared to the wild type candidate epitope using structure-based mutagenesis; obtaining a first sample comprising the wild type candidate epitope; performing site-directed mutagenesis to obtain a second sample comprising the substituted epitope; contacting the first sample comprising the wild type candidate epitope with a specific binding agent under conditions whereby a wild type candidate epitope/specific binding agent complex can form; and contacting the second sample comprising the substituted epitope with the specific binding agent under the same conditions used for the wild type candidate epitope/specific binding agent complex formation, wherein the wild type candidate epitope is identified as a flavivirus cross-reactive epitope when the substituted epitope has a substantially lower binding affinity for the specific binding agent compared to the wild type candidate epitope.