Comparative genomics of Bordetella pertussis and prediction of new vaccines and drug targets.

Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by a Gram-negative bacterium described over a century ago. Despite broad vaccine coverage and treatment options, the disease is remerging as a public health problem especially in infants and older children. Recent data indicate re-emergence of the disease is related to bacterial resistance to immune defences and decreased vaccine effectiveness, which obviously suggests the need of new effective vaccines and drugs. In an attempt to contribute with solutions to this great challenge, bioinformatics tools were used to genetically comprehend the species of these bacteria and predict new vaccines and drug targets. In fact, approaches were used to analysis genomic plasticity, gene synteny and species similarities between the 20 genomes of already available. Furthermore, it was conducted reverse vaccinology and docking analysis to identify proteins with potential to become vaccine and drug targets, respectively. The analyses showed the 20 genomes belongs to a homogeneous group that has preserved most of the genes over time. Besides that, were found genomics islands and good proteins to be candidates for vaccine and drugs. Taken together, these results suggests new possibilities that may be useful to develop new vaccines and drugs that will help the prevention and treatment strategies of pertussis disease caused by these strains. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.