This will help in the development of a vaccine.

Scientists from the Institute of immunology in La JOLLA with the help of colleagues from the Institute of Craig Wagner first identified possible targets of the immune response to the coronavirus SARS-Cov-2. As reported by Naked science portions of the antigens of the novel coronavirus have high degree of similarity with similar parts of the virus SARS-Cov, which causes SARS. It can help those involved in the development of a vaccine against the new virus, writes “Mirror of week. Ukraine”.

When a person’s immune system is faced with viruses or bacteria, it focuses on small plots of alien antigens, called epitopes. According to him “the invaders” recognize T – and b-lymphocytes and they are joined antibodies. The presence of a full map of the viral epitopes and their immunogenicity (ability to induce an immune response) is important for professionals who are developing and improving vaccines.

At the moment, except for SARS-Cov-2, in the human population circulate four coronavirus strain. They usually do not cause serious diseases, and all together responsible for about a quarter of seasonal colds. Every few years there is a new virus which causes more severe disease. So it was in 2002-2003 in 2015 and is happening now.

In the new study, the researchers used the data from IEDB database, which contains over 600 thousand known epitopes for 3600 different viruses, as well as information from the database of the Virus Pathogen Resource. Researchers analyzed the known epitopes of the strain SARS-CoV and compared them with similar plots of antigens of SARS-CoV-2.

“We were able to map 10 b-cell epitopes with the new coronavirus, and due to the General high degree of similarity [antigenic] sequences between the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, there is a high probability that these two strains of the same region are immunodominant”, says one of the study’s authors Alba Grifoni.

Five similar epitopes were found in the processes of the “crown” of the virus, three to viral nucleocapsid, and two more – in a protein shell. In addition, in the spinous processes and the nucleocapsid scientists found 17 similar T-cell epitopes.

Scientists say that the presence of similar epitopes in two strains of coronavirus is reassuring information for those who create the vaccine.