Reverse vaccinology assisted designing of multiepitope-based subunit vaccine against SARS-CoV-2
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(2020) 9:132
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Reverse vaccinology assisted designing of multiepitope-based subunit vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 Muhammad Tahir ul Qamar1†, Farah Shahid2†, Sadia Aslam3, Usman Ali Ashfaq2*, Sidra Aslam2, Israr Fatima2, Muhammad Mazhar Fareed2, Ali Zohaib4 and Ling-Ling Chen1*
Abstract Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) linked with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) cause severe illness and life-threatening pneumonia in humans. The current COVID-19 pandemic demands an effective vaccine to acquire protection against the infection. Therefore, the present study was aimed to design a multiepitope-based subunit vaccine (MESV) against COVID-19. Methods: Structural proteins (Surface glycoprotein, Envelope protein, and Membrane glycoprotein) of SARS-CoV-2 are responsible for its prime functions. Sequences of proteins were downloaded from GenBank and several immunoinformatics coupled with computational approaches were employed to forecast B- and T- cell epitopes from the SARS-CoV-2 highly antigenic structural proteins to design an effective MESV. Results: Predicted epitopes suggested high antigenicity, conserveness, substantial interactions with the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) binding alleles, and collective global population coverage of 88.40%. Taken together, 276 amino acids long MESV was designed by connecting 3 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), 6 helper T lymphocyte (HTL) and 4 B-cell epitopes with suitable adjuvant and linkers. The MESV construct was non-allergenic, stable, and highly antigenic. Molecular docking showed a stable and high binding affinity of MESV with human pathogenic toll-like receptors-3 (TLR3). Furthermore, in silico immune simulation revealed significant immunogenic response of MESV. Finally, MEV codons were optimized for its in silico cloning into the Escherichia coli K-12 system, to ensure its increased expression. Conclusion: The MESV developed in this study is capable of generating immune response against COVID-19. Therefore, if designed MESV further investigated experimentally, it would be an effective vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2 to control and prevent COVID-19. Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Structural protein, Epitope, Vaccine, Multiepitope-based subunit vaccine, Immunoinformatics
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] † Muhammad Tahir ul Qamar and Farah Shahid contributed equally to this work. 2 Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Government College University Faisalabad (GCUF), Faisalabad, Pakistan 1 College of Life Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, P. R. China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Common
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