In Silico Homology Modeling and Epitope Prediction of Drug Target Protein in Human Herpes Virus 8 (HHV8)

Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a tumor, caused by Human herpes virus 8 (HHV8), also known as Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV). The disease usually causes tumors in the tissues below the skin or face or in the mucous membranes of the nose, mouth or anus. In the present study we have performed in silico drug targets and epitope predictions of HHV8, which is a crucial step in designing of peptide vaccines. The dataset used in this study consists of 86 proteins of HHV8, out of these; 45proteins with unknown structures were selected. Comparative genome analysis of selected proteins between human and HHV8 was done using BLASTP. Out of 45 proteins, 44 proteins were found to be dissimilar and considered as drug target. Based on functional characterization, one membrane bound protein was selected for homology modeling and B-cell epitope prediction. Homology modeling was done using CPHmodels-3.0 Server and B-cell epitopes were obtained from BcePred Prediction Server. The accuracy of prediction based on propensities greater than 1.9. Swiss Pdb viewer was used to visualize the 3D structure of B-cell epitopes.