An in silico Investigation on the Cell Surface Specific Antigens for Providing New Approaches of Cancer Therapy and Cancer Diagnosis

Advances in recombinant DNA technology, protein and metabolic engineering and in silico investigation have led to the use of cytotoxic products of microorganisms for anti-cancer drugs development based on targeting cell surface antigens of cancerous cells, which are known as immunotoxins. Therefore, understanding the structural and functional characteristics of these types of the antigens, while leading to present a new way for cancer diagnosis, provide us targets for immunotoxins designing. Considering, reported cancerous cell surface specific antigens of various tissues were gathered, and then corresponding nucleotide and protein sequences as well as 3D structures of them were derived from related databanks. Subsequently, several in silico programs were used for sequence, interaction, as well as expression characterization on normal and cancerous tissues. The results of this analysis lead to the disclosure cell surface specific antigens including PSMA, PSA, EPCAM, GPA33, EPHA3, IGFIR, AFP, CEA CAM 7, CEACAM5, CEA CAM3, CA15-3, NSE, HCG, MSLN, and MAGE4 with different expression on normal and cancerous tissues, and 27 key matching ligands. Among these antigens, MAGE4 showed high expression on the cell surface of 20 different of cancer tissues. Meanwhile, nucleotide and protein sequence analysis of the antigens and corresponding ligands lead to provide a series of therapeutic targets for immunotoxins designing as well as for cancer diagnosis, which ought to be more tested.