Epitope

Epitope is a part of an antigenic protein consisting of a sequence of 8 to 15 amino acids that provide the immunogenicity of an antigen protein. Immune receptors such as TCR, BCR, and MHC of various immune cells including T cells, B cells, and macrophages recognize epitopes and lead to various immune responses. As a simple example, when a bacteria enters the body, B cells recognize various epiptopes from the bacterial antigen and form antibodies against them. The process of biologically searching for epitopes is a method called epitope scanning, which cuts and searches the entire amino acid sequence of antigen into units of about 15 or more. This method has the problem of being classic and labor intensive. Deargen, together with its partner Optipharm, created an Artificial Intelligence model that predicts epitope and implemented epitope scanning in silico, and is currently conducting research and development such as cancer treatment vaccine and epitope library construction.