Veterinary Research Forum

Abstract Today, a combination of immunological and bioinformatics tools has become common for vaccine design, making vaccine production affordable. Considering the importance of recombinant protein purification for vaccine production in a cost-effective way, our study aimed to in silico design a fusion protein vaccine against egg drop syndrome virus (EDSV) with a higher isoelectric point for more affordable purification. The in silico design of fusion protein, including egg white lysozyme and fiber protein as an antigen from egg drop syndrome virus, was performed. In addition to isoelectric point changing, lysozyme probably helps the antigenicity by increasing the size of the antigen. Also, lysozyme can act as a preservative. The physicochemical characteristics, stability, secondary and tertiary structure, epitope prediction, antigenicity, and mRNA structure were analyzed using computational and bioinformatics tools. The results showed that the isoelectric point of the gene construct was 8.87, which can be purified by ion exchange chromatography. Validation of the Ramachandran plot showed that the predicted model was accurate and suitable. The tertiary structure of the fusion protein was modeled as well, and its trimer structure, being required for immunogenicity, was preserved. The antigenicity of the target construct was also suitable. Protein was stable and hydrophilic based on aliphatic index and grand average of hydropathicity, which can be a good candidate for a vaccine. After experimental studies, this fusion protein may be used as a vaccine against EDSV.

Abstract The angiogenesis process is a pivotal cellular process involved in both developmental and pathological circumstances. In this study we investigated effect of Urtica dioica agglutinin (UDA), as an unusual phyto-lectin from the chitin-binding protein family, on the angiogenesis of chicken embryos. The UDA was extracted from plant rhizomes and purified by affinity chromatography column. The activity of this lectin was assayed by hemagglutination test on the human RBCs. Anti-angiogenic effect of UDA on the extra-embryonic layer of the chick egg was studied in the different concentrations. Our results showed that the minimum concentration of UDA for agglutination were 48.00 and 15.00 µg mL^-1 in macro- and microscopic studies, respectively. Because the number and length of the vessels were dramatically decreased at 100 µg kg^-1 of UDA, the lectin had an inhibitory effect on angiogenesis of the embryonic vasculature of the chick. We concluded that UDA might target the vascularization events through binding to GlcNAc-conjugates. More investigations are needed to clarify the angiogenesis-related therapeutic roles of this interesting biomolecule.