Abstract

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common cancer among children worldwide, characterized by an overproduction of undifferentiated lymphoblasts in the bone marrow. The enzyme L-asparaginase isolated from Escherichia coli and Dickeya chrysanthemi is a key factor in multiple therapies against this disease. Regardless of their effectiveness, these formulations present well-known adverse effects, highlighting the immunogenicity and allergenicity they cause. Some strategies have been adopted in this regard, such as PEGylation and modification by bioengineering as well as the search for new non-bacterial microorganisms producing the enzyme. Fungi have been shown to be asparaginase producers with high antitumor activity; however, little is known about the immunological features of fungal asparaginase. In this work, we developed the first immunoinformatics study focused on revealing the antigenic determinants that contribute to the immunogenicity of nine asparaginases of filamentous fungi experimentally tested, and compared them with the enzyme from E. coli. We were able to predict that the fungal asparaginases evaluated have a high degree of immunogenicity, which is an important result to consider if the aim is to produce clinical l-asparaginase from a fungal source. Likewise, for the first time, a bioinformatics-based approach was used to predict the immunogenic and allergenic epitopes present in fungal asparaginases.