Mimotope
Encyclopedia
A mimotope is a macromolecule, often a peptide
, which mimics the structure of an epitope
. Because of this property it causes an antibody
response similar to the one elicited by the epitope. An antibody for a given epitope antigen will recognize a mimotope which mimics that epitope. Mimotopes are commonly obtained from phage display
libraries through biopanning
. Vaccine
s utilizing mimotopes are being developed.
When term mimotope was first coined by Mario Geysen in 1986 , it was used to describe peptides mimicking epitope. However, this concept has been extended to refer peptide mimic of all types of binding sites. As the mimic of binding site, mimotope analysis has been widely used in mapping epitopes , identifying drug target and inferring protein interaction networks . Furthermore, mimotope has also shown its potential in the development of new diagnostics , therapeutics and vaccines . In addition, special affinities mediated by mimotopes to various semiconductors and other materials have shown very encouraging promise in new material and new energy studies . Gathering information on mimotopes into a special database therefore deserves. In 2010, the MimoDB database version 1.0 was released . It had 10716 peptides grouped into 1229 sets. These peptides were extracted from biopanning results of phage-displayed random peptide libraries reported in 571 papers. The MimoDB database has been updated to the current version 2.0 very recently.. In version 2.0, it has 15633 peptides collected from 849 papers and grouped into 1818 sets. Besides the core data on panning experiments and their results, broad background information on target, template, library and structure is included. An accompanied benchmark has also been compiled for bioinformaticians to develop and evaluate their new models, algorithms and programs. In addition, the MimoDB database provides tools for simple and advanced searches, structure visualization, BLAST and alignment view on the fly. The experimental biologists can easily use the database as a virtual control to exclude possible target-unrelated peptides. The MimoDB database is freely available.
Peptide
Peptides are short polymers of amino acid monomers linked by peptide bonds. They are distinguished from proteins on the basis of size, typically containing less than 50 monomer units. The shortest peptides are dipeptides, consisting of two amino acids joined by a single peptide bond...
, which mimics the structure of an epitope
Epitope
An epitope, also known as antigenic determinant, is the part of an antigen that is recognized by the immune system, specifically by antibodies, B cells, or T cells. The part of an antibody that recognizes the epitope is called a paratope...
. Because of this property it causes an antibody
Antibody
An antibody, also known as an immunoglobulin, is a large Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique part of the foreign target, termed an antigen...
response similar to the one elicited by the epitope. An antibody for a given epitope antigen will recognize a mimotope which mimics that epitope. Mimotopes are commonly obtained from phage display
Phage display
Phage display is a method for the study of protein–protein, protein–peptide, and protein–DNA interactions that uses bacteriophages to connect proteins with the genetic information that encodes them. Phage Display was originally invented by George P...
libraries through biopanning
Biopanning
Biopanning is an affinity selection technique which selects for peptides that bind to a given target . All peptide sequences obtained from biopanning using combinatorial peptide libraries have been stored in a special database with the name MimoDB , which is freely available...
. Vaccine
Vaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
s utilizing mimotopes are being developed.
When term mimotope was first coined by Mario Geysen in 1986 , it was used to describe peptides mimicking epitope. However, this concept has been extended to refer peptide mimic of all types of binding sites. As the mimic of binding site, mimotope analysis has been widely used in mapping epitopes , identifying drug target and inferring protein interaction networks . Furthermore, mimotope has also shown its potential in the development of new diagnostics , therapeutics and vaccines . In addition, special affinities mediated by mimotopes to various semiconductors and other materials have shown very encouraging promise in new material and new energy studies . Gathering information on mimotopes into a special database therefore deserves. In 2010, the MimoDB database version 1.0 was released . It had 10716 peptides grouped into 1229 sets. These peptides were extracted from biopanning results of phage-displayed random peptide libraries reported in 571 papers. The MimoDB database has been updated to the current version 2.0 very recently.. In version 2.0, it has 15633 peptides collected from 849 papers and grouped into 1818 sets. Besides the core data on panning experiments and their results, broad background information on target, template, library and structure is included. An accompanied benchmark has also been compiled for bioinformaticians to develop and evaluate their new models, algorithms and programs. In addition, the MimoDB database provides tools for simple and advanced searches, structure visualization, BLAST and alignment view on the fly. The experimental biologists can easily use the database as a virtual control to exclude possible target-unrelated peptides. The MimoDB database is freely available.