B-cell epitope mapping for the design of vaccines and effective diagnostics

The increasing resistance of many microbial strains to antibiotics, delayed laboratory results, and side effects of many chemotherapeutics has raised the need to search for sensitive diagnostics and new prophylactic strategies especially prevention by vaccination. Understanding the epitope/antibody interaction is the key to constructing potent vaccines and effective diagnostics. B-cell epitope mapping is a promising approach to identifying the main antigenic determinants of microorganisms, in special concern the discontinuous conformational ones. Epitope-based vaccines have remarkable privilege over the conventional ones since they are specific, able to avoid undesirable immune responses, generate long lasting immunity, and are reasonably cheaper. This up-to-date review discusses and compares the different physical, computational, and molecular methods that have been used in epitope mapping. The role of each method in the identification of potent epitopes in viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, as well as human diseases are tagged and documented. Simultaneously, frequent combinatorial methods are highlighted. The article aims to assist researchers to design the most suitable protocol for mapping their B-cell epitopes.