mimicDetector: a pipeline for protein motif mimicry detection in host-pathogen interactions

MOTIVATION: Molecular mimicry is used by pathogens to evade the host immune system and manipulate other host cellular processes. It is often mediated by short motifs in non-homologous proteins, whose detection challenges the sensitivity and specificity of existing bioinformatics tools. RESULTS: We present mimicDetector, a k-mer-based pipeline for identifying protein-level molecular mimicry between pathogens and their hosts. Applied to 17 globally important pathogens, mimicDetector identified a broad and biologically plausible set of mimicry candidates, including helminth proteins mimicking components of the human complement system and a Leishmania infantum mimic of Reticulon-4, a regulator of immune cell recruitment. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: mimicDetector is freely available at https://github.com/kayleerich/mimicDetector/, implemented in Python and Snakemake, and compatible with Unix-based systems.