CovEpiAb

CovEpiAb catalogs experimentally validated epitopes and antibody interaction data for human coronaviruses (HCoVs), including SARS-CoV-2, to support analysis of immune escape and identification of conserved epitopes for vaccine and antibody development.

Key Features:

• Extensive Data Repository: Houses over 60,000 experimentally validated epitopes and more than 12,000 antibodies associated with HCoVs and SARS-CoV-2 variants.
• Cross-Reactive Epitope Classification: Classifies and annotates cross-reactive epitopes across viruses and variants to highlight conserved regions.
• Molecular Interaction Profiles: Provides structure-based binding-site annotations and approximately 70,000 data points on binding affinity and neutralizing activity for antibody-epitope interactions.
• Virological Characteristics and Therapeutics Data: Contains virological characteristics of current and past SARS-CoV-2 variants and in vitro activity data for therapeutics.
• Functional Annotations: Offers site-level annotations of antibody binding sites, immunological epitopes, SARS-CoV-2 mutations, and conservation across HCoVs.
• Integrated Epitope Prediction Pipeline (COVEP): Includes an integrated pipeline named COVEP for epitope prediction.

Scientific Applications:

• Immune Escape Analysis: Enables analysis of immune escape mechanisms in SARS-CoV-2 and other HCoVs.
• Broad-Spectrum Vaccine and Antibody Design: Supports identification of conserved epitopes for broad-spectrum vaccine and neutralizing antibody development.
• Antibody–Epitope Interaction Characterization: Facilitates detailed characterization of antibody binding and neutralization using structure-based profiles and affinity data.
• Therapeutic Efficacy Evaluation: Supports evaluation of in vitro therapeutic activity against different SARS-CoV-2 variants.
• Epitope Discovery and Conservation Analysis: Enables discovery of novel epitopes and assessment of conservation across HCoVs using annotations and prediction outputs.

Methodology:

Structure-based binding-site annotation, classification and annotation of cross-reactive epitopes, aggregation of experimental binding-affinity and neutralization data (~70,000 datapoints), and the COVEP epitope prediction pipeline.