Abstract
Infectious serositis of ducks, caused by Riemerella anatipestifer, is one of the main infectious diseases that harm commercial ducks. Whole-strain-based vaccines with no or few cross-protection were observed between different serotypes of R. anatipestifer, and so far, control of infection is hampered by a lack of effective vaccines, especially subunit vaccines with cross-protection. Since the concept of reverse vaccinology was introduced, it has been widely used to screen for protective antigens in important pathogens. In this study, pan-genome binding reverse vaccinology, an emerging approach to vaccine candidate screening, was used to screen for cross-protective antigens against R. anatipestifer. Thirty proteins were identified from the core-genome as potential cross-protective antigens. Three of these proteins were recombinantly expressed, and their immunoreactivity with five antisera (anti-serotypes 1, 2, 6, 10, and 11) was demonstrated by Western blotting. Our study established a method for high-throughput screening of cross-protective antigens against R. anatipestifer in silico, which will lay the foundation for the development of a cross-protective subunit vaccine controlling R. anatipestifer infection.
Key points
• Pan-genome binding reverse vaccine approach was first established in R. anatipestifer to screen for subunit vaccine candidates.
• Thirty potential cross-protective antigens against R. anatipestifer were identified by this method.
• The reliability of the method was verified preliminarily by the results of Western blotting of three of these potential antigens.
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Data availability
The genome datasets generated during the current study are available in the NCBI database, [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/browse/#!/prokaryotes/2536/]. All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this manuscript.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Grant No. SCKJ-JYRC-2022–80; The Guidance Foundation, the Sanya Institute of Nanjing Agricultural University (NAUSY-MS12); Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2020MC175); and Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects in Shandong Province (2019JZZY010719).
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X.K. Z. conceived and designed research. X.K. Z. and S.X. X. conducted experiments. Z.H. W. and L. D. contributed reagents and analytical tools. X.K. Z. analyzed data. X.K. Z. and X.Y. T. wrote and revised the manuscript. Y.Q. L., Y.B. L., and W. Z. applied for funding and supervised research. All authors read and approved the manuscript.
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Zheng, X., Xu, S., Wang, Z. et al. Sifting through the core-genome to identify putative cross-protective antigens against Riemerella anatipestifer. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 107, 3085–3098 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12479-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12479-3