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For the development of multi-peptide vaccine, identification of antigenic epitopes is crucial. If it is done using wet lab techniques, the identification process can be time-consuming, laborious, and cost-intensive. In silico tools, on the other hand, enable researchers to predict potential epitopes with little to no cost for further in vivo and in vitro testing. The rapid identification process using in silico tools helps in responding to health emergencies faster. Developing an efficient and high coverage vaccine is one of the ways to reduce morbidity and mortality rates of the diseases and protect the affected populations. In this chapter, we introduce the necessary tools and methodology for the identification and characterization of antigenic epitopes to design a multi-epitope vaccine using varicella-zoster virus as an example vector model., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Some of the antifouling booster biocides affects the marine ecosystem negatively. The booster biocides that are resistant to degradation are accumulated in the sediment of the oceans. One of the sedentary organisms in the Mediterranean Sea is Anemonia viridis. This study aims at showing the toxicities of common biocides such as irgarol, seanine-211, zinc omadine, and acticide on the fluorescence by GFPs of A. viridis. The decreases in the fluorescence intensities of the GFP were measured within different booster biocide concentrations. The results show that fluorescent intensities of GFP proteins decrease more than 50% when they are exposed to different concentrations of irgarol, zinc omadine, acticide. In conclusion, ecosystem health should be prioritized when new antifouling paint compositions are proposed. From the results, it seems that A. viridis can be considered as a vulnerable organism and it is sensitive to booster biocides within self-polishing antifouling paint formulations., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Siphonous green seaweeds, such as Caulerpa , are among the most morphologically complex algae with differentiated algal structures (morphological niches). Caulerpa is also host to a rich diversity of bacterial endo- and epibionts. The degree to which these bacterial communities are species-, or even niche-specific remains largely unknown. To address this, we investigated the diversity of bacteria associated to different morphological niches of both native and invasive species of Caulerpa from different geographic locations along the Turkish coastline of the Aegean sea. Associated bacteria were identified using the 16S rDNA marker gene for three morphological niches, such as the endobiome, epibiome, and rhizobiome. Bacterial community structure was explored and deterministic factors behind bacterial variation were investigated. Of the total variation, only 21.5% could be explained. Pronounced differences in bacterial community composition were observed and variation was partly explained by a combination of host species, biogeography and nutrient levels. The majority of the explained bacterial variation within the algal holobiont was attributed to the micro-environments established by distinct morphological niches. This study further supports the hypothesis that the bacterial assembly is largely stochastic in nature and bacterial community structure is most likely linked to functional genes rather than taxonomy.