Rapid screening of highly efficient vaccine candidates by immunoproteomics

Diseases caused by microorganisms can be controlled by vaccines, which require neutralizing antigens. Therefore, it is very important to identify highly efficient immunogens for immune prevention. By combining immunoproteomics and bacterial challenge after immunization, we developed a rapid method for screening protected antigens of pathogenic bacteria in aquaculture. Our approach may be divided into three consecutive steps. First, dominant immunogens of outer membrane proteins are screened by immunoproteomics. Second, proteins with the ability to induce production of neutralizing antibodies are identified from the immunogens by virulent bacterium challenge following vaccination. Third, vaccine candidates are determined by evaluation of neutralizing abilities. Information on the candidates has been obtained for further gene cloning by mass spectrometry. Our results indicate that highly efficient protected antigens were identified from the outer membrane proteome of Aeromonas hydrophila, in which an immunogen showed 71.4% protective ability with multivalent functions to A. hydrophila and Aeromonas sobria. In summary, we have developed a high-throughout, accurate, rapid and highly efficient method which will play an active role in immune prevention for microbiological diseases.