ArticleVirulence2013
Prediction of molecular mimicry candidates in human pathogenic bacteria.
Article in Virulence, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 94 citations in OpenAlex.
- Serum autoantibodyome reveals that healthy individuals share common autoantibodies.Cell reports · 2022Pooled it
- CB-Search: a method for searching for similar protein motifs with biased compositions.BMC bioinformatics · 2026Article
- mimicDetector: a pipeline for protein motif mimicry detection in host-pathogen interactions.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- EMoMiS: A pipeline for epitope-based molecular mimicry search in protein structures with potential applications to SARS-CoV-2.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2026Article
- Molecular Mimicry Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Sequence Homology Between SARS-CoV-2 and Autoimmune Diseases Epitopes.Immunoinformatics (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Diverse genetic conflicts mediated by molecular mimicry and computational approaches to detect them.Seminars in cell & developmental biology · 2025Review
- Molecular mimicry as a mechanism of viral immune evasion and autoimmunity.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Review
- The Epistemology of Bacterial Virulence Factor Characterization.Microorganisms · 2024Review
- Molecular Mimicry as a Mechanism of Viral Immune Evasion and Autoimmunity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- MMPred: a tool to predict peptide mimicry events in MHC class II recognition.Frontiers in genetics · 2024Article
- Prioritization of infectious epitopes for translational investigation in type 1 diabetes etiology.Journal of autoimmunity · 2023Article
- Characterization of protein cargo of Echinococcus granulosus extracellular vesicles in drug response and its influence on immune response.Parasites & vectors · 2023Article
- Visiting Molecular Mimicry Once More: Pathogenicity, Virulence, and Autoimmunity.Microorganisms · 2023Article
- Autoantibodies to Interferons in Infectious Diseases.Viruses · 2023Review
- Proteome-wide comparison of tertiary protein structures reveals molecular mimicry inFrontiers in parasitology · 2023Article
- Molecular mimicry and COVID-19: Potential implications for global fertility.Molecular biology research communications · 2023Article
- Article
- Leptospiral Leucine-Rich Repeat Protein-Based Lateral Flow for Assessment of Canine Leptospiral Immunoglobulin G.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Molecular mimicry of host proteins is a common strategy adopted by bacterial pathogens to interfere with and exploit host processes. Despite the availability of pathogen genomes, few studies have attempted to predict virulence-associated mimicry relationships directly from genomic sequences. Here, we analyzed the proteomes of 62 pathogenic and 66 non-pathogenic bacterial species, and screened for the top pathogen-specific or pathogen-enriched sequence similarities to human proteins. The screen identified approximately 100 potential mimicry relationships including well-characterized examples among the top-scoring hits (e.g., RalF, internalin, yopH, and others), with about 1/3 of predicted relationships supported by existing literature. Examination of homology to virulence factors, statistically enriched functions, and comparison with literature indicated that the detected mimics target key host structures (e.g., extracellular matrix, ECM) and pathways (e.g., cell adhesion, lipid metabolism, and immune signaling). The top-scoring and most widespread mimicry pattern detected among pathogens consisted of elevated sequence similarities to ECM proteins including collagens and leucine-rich repeat proteins. Unexpectedly, analysis of the pathogen counterparts of these proteins revealed that they have evolved independently in different species of bacterial pathogens from separate repeat amplifications. Thus, our analysis provides evidence for two classes of mimics: complex proteins such as enzymes that have been acquired by eukaryote-to-pathogen horizontal transfer, and simpler repeat proteins that have independently evolved to mimic the host ECM. Ultimately, computational detection of pathogen-specific and pathogen-enriched similarities to host proteins provides insights into potentially novel mimicry-mediated virulence mechanisms of pathogenic bacteria.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.