Chowdhury Lab's new study, titled "Identification and biophysical characterization of epitope atlas of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus", published in Computational Structural Biotechnology Journal (read here) aims to tackle the challenge of delineating modalities of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) entry and infection in pig populations. Supantha Dey with other researchers identified 63 protein-protein interactions crucial for viral entry and infection. Using genome-proteome annotation, protein structure prediction, docking experiments, and binding energy calculations, they pinpointed 75 key epitopes that enable viral proteins for facile entry and infection. Through diffusion-based machine learning simulations, they designed 56 stable immunogen peptides that contain these epitopes. The findings highlight potential for creating high-avidity, multi-valent PRRSV vaccines, leveraging structural molecular insights and neural networks for therapeutic intervention. This is geared towards improving swine health and reduce economic losses.
Other researchers from Iowa State on this project are undergraduate researchers in Chemical and Biological Engineering Maria Brown, Jennifer Bruner, and Dr. Mike Roof (Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics Platform). This project was funded by the NSF EPSCoR Chemurgy-2.0 to Chowdhury.