How can a protein from any organism (parasite, virus, bacteria...) be identified as a potential antigen and for the detection of that organism presence in another one, via antibody detection, with an ELISA-type immunoassay?
A good first step might be to identify proteins containing hydrophilic stretches with little or no homology to the proteome of the species supposed to mount an immune response. Back in my old lab times, we used to scan peptides with an algorithm such as Kyte Doolittle and tested them for minimal homology. Nevertheless, the predicted antigenic peptides have to be verified empirically by synthesizing and testing them with antisera from infected and non-infected individuals. Luckily, the synthesis of a few thousand peptides in small scale is much less expensive than it was 20 years ago...
A straightforward way to check the ELISA against the antibodies of the infected host if you have the protein.
There is many epitope prediction software available you can use to check the antigenicity of your protein.
For example:
http://tools.iedb.org
It can give you better idea and you can correlate your data with these results.
David,
am organism might react to protein as antigen in some circumstances. First, immune system should be activated properly - it should recognize protein as pathogen or non-self. For example protein should be associated will cell damage, stress, PAMPs etc. If some components of protein have host similarities, it might activate opposite immunosuppressive reaction.
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