2.8. Analysis of Sequence Similarity between Leishmania and Human Proteins

To exclude proteins with a high similarity to human proteins, identified sLnAg protein sequences were searched against human sequences using the Basic Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi, accessed on 7 March 2022). The similarity classifications of Rost (1999) [31] and Chung et al. (1996) [32] were used. Thus, proteins with no significant similarity or low similarity (similarity values between zero and 30%) were selected for further analysis. The sequences of Leishmania infantum A2 protein (A2) [33], Plasmodium falciparum—circunsporozoite protein (CSP) [34], and Mycobacterium tuberculosis Ag85A protein (Ag85A) [35] were used as controls in this and subsequent analyses. These control proteins are well-characterized as vaccine targets.