Significant protein sequence alignment between vaccine antigens and Alopecia Areata associated autoantigen

Pandemrix vaccine induced narcolepsy was caused by molecular mimicry between the H1N1 influenza virus nucleoprotein and the human hyprocretin receptor. The BLASTP bioinformatics tool was used to determine a protein sequence alignment score between the influenza nucleoprotein and human hyprocretin receptor. This score was used as a baseline to assess autoantigen sequence alignment to vaccine antigens and contaminants. Significant protein sequence alignment was observed between autoantigens and vaccine antigens, contaminants, with numerous scores exceeding the baseline value.