Ros-Lucas A. auteur aut IRD Bigey P. auteur aut IRD Chippaux Jean-Philippe auteur aut IRD Gascon J. auteur aut IRD Alonso-Padilla J. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf reformatted digital access Snakebite envenomation is a neglected tropical disease that causes over 100,000 deaths each year. The only effective treatment consists of antivenoms derived from animal sera, but these have been deemed with highly variable potency and are usually inaccessible and too costly for victims. The production of antivenoms by venom-independent techniques, such as the immunization with multi-epitope constructs, could circumvent those drawbacks. Herein, we present a knowledge-based pipeline to prioritize potential epitopes of therapeutic relevance from toxins of medically important snakes in West Sub-Saharan Africa. It is mainly based on sequence conservation and protein structural features. The ultimately selected 41 epitopes originate from 11 out of 16 snake species considered of highest medical importance in the region and 3 out of 10 of those considered as secondary medical importance. Echis ocellatus, responsible for the highest casualties in the area, would be covered by 12 different epitopes. Remarkably, this pipeline is versatile and customizable for the analysis of snake venom sequences from any other region of the world. specialized antivenom snake bites snake venoms snakes B-cell epitopes Sub-Saharan Africa AFRIQUE DE L'OUEST ZONE TROPICALE 080 050 020 14 6 418 [16 ] 2022 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010085366 10.3390/toxins14060418 [F B010085366] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010085366 https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/2022-09/010085366.pdf IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2022-09-02 2025-02-24 fdi:010085366 fre