Expert Rev Vaccines
. 2020 Sep 1.
doi: 10.1080/14760584.2020.1811091. Online ahead of print.
Designing an Efficient Multi-Epitope Vaccine Displaying Interactions with Diverse HLA Molecules for an Efficient Humoral and Cellular Immune Response to prevent COVID-19 infection
Mrutyunjay Suar 1 , Soumya Mahapatra 1 , Susrita Sahoo 1 , Budheswar Dehury 1 , Vishakha Raina 1 , Shubhransu Patro 1 , Namrata Misra 1
Affiliations
- PMID: 32869699
- DOI: 10.1080/14760584.2020.1811091
Abstract
Background: The novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the causative agent of the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 disease continues to infect people globally and has infected millions of humans worldwide. However, no effective vaccine against this virus exists.
Method: Using Immunoinformatics, epitopic sequences from multiple glycoproteins that play crucial role in pathogenesis were identified. Particularly, epitopes were mapped from conserved receptor-binding domain of spike protein which have been experimentally validated in SARS-CoV-1 as a promising target for vaccine development.
Results: A multi-epitopic vaccine construct comprising of B-cell, CTL, HTL epitopes was developed alongwith fusion of adjuvant and linkers. The epitopes identified herein are reported for the first time and were predicted to be highly antigenic, stable, non-allergen, nontoxic and displayed conservation across several SARS-CoV-2 isolates from different countries. Additionally, the epitopes associated with maximum HLA alleles and population coverage analysis shows the proposed epitopes would be a relevant representative of large proportion of the world population. A reliable three-dimensional structure of the vaccine construct was developed. Consequently, docking and molecular-dynamics simulation ensured the stable interaction between vaccine and innate-immune receptor.
Conclusion: The promiscuous epitopes capable of inducing humoral and cellular immune response can be considered as potential vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2.
Keywords: COVID-19; Immunoinformatics; SARS-CoV-2; multi-epitopic vaccine; receptor-binding domain.