Prediction of Antigenic B and T Cell Epitopes via Energy Decomposition Analysis: Description of the Web-Based Prediction Tool BEPPE.

Unraveling the molecular basis of immune recognition still represents a challenging task for current biological sciences, both in terms of theoretical knowledge and practical implications. Here, we describe the physical-chemistry methods and computational protocols for the prediction of antibody-binding epitopes and MHC-II loaded epitopes, starting from the atomic coordinates of antigenic proteins (PDB file). These concepts are the base of the Web tool BEPPE (Binding Epitope Prediction from Protein Energetics), a free service that returns a list of putative epitope sequences and related blast searches against the Uniprot human complete proteome.

"Shoehorn technique" for inserting Ionescu-Shiley valves in the mitral position.

A technique is described for safer and easier insertion of the Ionescu-Shiley valves at the mitral level by using the same principle that applies in the use of a shoehorn.