Reverse vaccinology points to pagP as a universal APEC vaccine candidate

Published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, our reverse vaccinology and host-pathogen analysis identifies pagP as a potential universal vaccine candidate against avian pathogenic E. coli — work also featured in MAFES Discovers.

Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) is one of the costliest bacterial diseases in poultry production. In work published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, our team used reverse vaccinology — pangenome analysis and in-silico antigen prediction — to identify pagP as a potential universal vaccine candidate:

Jia, L., Ye, X., Arick, M.A., Hsu, C.Y., Evans, J.D., Robinson, K., Adhikari, P., & Zhang, L. (2025). Reverse vaccinology and host-pathogen analysis reveal pagP as a potential universal vaccine candidate against avian pathogenic Escherichia coli in poultry. Journal of Applied Microbiology, 136(10), lxaf253. DOI

The vaccine-development program behind this work was featured by MAFES Discovers in “Fowl Play: MSU Scientists Develop Chicken Vaccine to Combat Bacteria”.