H. Safavieh
A.H. Jalali
H. Tajbakhsh
H. Paykari
H. Keywanfar
K. Aghaiypour
A.M. Mohammadi
S.R. Ghorbani
A. Foroghi

In the last decades researchers had focused on developing a vaccine against tick based on protective antigen. Recombinant vaccines based on concealed antigen from Boophilus microplus have been developed in Australia and Cuba by the name of TICKGARD and GAVAC (De La Fuente and Kocan, ۲۰۰۶). Further studies on this antigen have shown some extent of protection against other species (De Vos et al., ۲۰۰۱). In Iran most important species is Hyalomma anatolicum and limited information about its control are available. This paper reports structural and polymorphic analysis of HA۰۳ as an Iranian candidate concealed antigen of H. a. anatolicum deposited in Gen-Bank .(Aghaeipour et al. GQ۲۲۸۸۲۰). The comparison between this antigen and other mid gut concealed antigen that their characteristics are available in GenBank showed there are high rate of similarity between them. The HA۰۳ amino acid sequence had a homology of around ۸۹%, ۶۴%, ۵۶% with HA۹۸, BM۸۶, BM۹۵ respectively. Potential of MHC class I and II binding region indicated a considerable variation between BM۸۶ antigen and its efficiency against Iranian H. a. anatolicum. In addition, predicted major of hydrophobisity and similarity in N-glycosylation besides large amount of cystein and seven EGF like regions presented in protein structure revealed that value of HA۰۳ as a new protective antigen and the necessity of the development, BM۸۶ homolog of H. a. anatolicum HA۰۳ based recombinant vaccine.

HA۰۳, Concealed Antigen, BM۸۶ Homologous, Hyalomma