In Silico De-Immunization

This protocol shows how to reduce immunogenicity by removing CD4+ T cell epitopes. These epitopes may limit the efficacy of protein therapeutics by inducing the development of a long-lived humoral immune response. The approach presented here mainly consists in (i) locate the T cell epitopes by in silico prediction, (ii) design point mutations to eliminate these T cell epitopes, (iii) test the lower immunogenicity of these mutated peptides and (iv) assess the preservation of the three dimensional structure of the antibody as well as its binding affinity for its target.