Mining of novel drug/vaccine targets from the proteome of Staphylococcus aureus using computational tools through reverse vaccinology approach

Aim: The present study aims to investigate the cluster of unexplored proteins of Staphylococcus aureususing a series of bioinformatics tools to fetch novel drug/vaccine candidates. Staphylococcus aureus, a gram-positive multidrug resistant bacteria which is easily transmitting nosocomial infections. So far, no effective vaccine exists to prevent this pathogenic infection.Materials and Methods: A total of 50 uncharacterized protein sequences of Staphylococcus aureus were retrieved from NCBI and analyzed using computational tools for studying their localization, membrane helices, physicochemical properties, virulence factors, signal peptides, antigenicity, and epitopes. These proteins were then subjected to tBLASTn to compare against human proteome for confirming that they are not human homologs in order to bypass autoimmune reactions. Results: Two potential candidate proteins possessing virulence and antigenic properties, comprising epitopes and are not human homologs were found in this study. Conclusion: Hence, these proteins could be ideal drug/vaccine targets, however, further in-depth immuno-informatics and structural biology approaches are recommended with in-vitro and in-vivo experiments for validation.