Automatic Generation of Validated Specific Epitope Sets

Accurate measurement of b and t cell responses is a valuable tool to study autoimmunity,allergies,immunity to pathogens,and host-pathogen interactions and assist in the design and evaluation of t cell vaccines and immunotherapies. in this context,it is desirable to elucidate a method to select validated reference sets of epitopes to allow detection of t and b cells. however,the ever-growing information contained in the immune epitope database (iedb) and the differences in quality and subjects studied between epitope assays make this task complicated. in this study,we develop a novel method to automatically select reference epitope sets according to a categorization system employed by the iedb. from the sets generated,three epitope sets (ebv,mycobacteria and dengue) were experimentally validated by detection of t cell reactivity ex vivo from human donors. furthermore,a web application that will potentially be implemented in the iedb was created to allow users the capacity to generate customized epitope sets. © 2015 sebastian carrasco pro et al.