Immunoinformatics-guided designing of epitope-based subunit vaccines against the SARS Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Immunobiology. 2020 May;225(3):151955. doi: 10.1016/j.imbio.2020.151955. Epub 2020 May 11.

Abstract

SARS Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has become a global issue which has raised the concern of scientific community to design and discover a counter-measure against this deadly virus. So far, the pandemic has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people upon infection and spreading. To date, no effective vaccine is available which can combat the infection caused by this virus. Therefore, this study was conducted to design possible epitope-based subunit vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus using the approaches of reverse vaccinology and immunoinformatics. Upon continual computational experimentation, three possible vaccine constructs were designed and one vaccine construct was selected as the best vaccine based on molecular docking study which is supposed to effectively act against the SARS-CoV-2. Thereafter, the molecular dynamics simulation and in silico codon adaptation experiments were carried out in order to check biological stability and find effective mass production strategy of the selected vaccine. This study should contribute to uphold the present efforts of the researches to secure a definitive preventative measure against this lethal disease.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Immunoinformatics; Reverse vaccinology; SARS-COV-2; Vaccine.

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Betacoronavirus / drug effects
  • Betacoronavirus / immunology*
  • Betacoronavirus / pathogenicity
  • COVID-19
  • COVID-19 Vaccines
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Coronavirus Infections / drug therapy*
  • Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology
  • Coronavirus Infections / immunology
  • Coronavirus Infections / prevention & control
  • Coronavirus Infections / virology
  • Disease Progression
  • Epitopes / chemistry
  • Epitopes / immunology
  • Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte / genetics
  • Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte / immunology
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / genetics
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / immunology
  • HLA Antigens / genetics
  • HLA Antigens / immunology
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions / genetics
  • Host-Pathogen Interactions / immunology
  • Humans
  • Immunogenicity, Vaccine
  • Molecular Docking Simulation
  • Pandemics*
  • Plasmids / chemistry
  • Plasmids / immunology
  • Pneumonia, Viral / drug therapy*
  • Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology
  • Pneumonia, Viral / immunology
  • Pneumonia, Viral / virology
  • Protein Conformation
  • Reverse Genetics / methods
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Vaccines, Subunit
  • Viral Proteins / chemistry*
  • Viral Proteins / genetics
  • Viral Proteins / immunology
  • Viral Vaccines / biosynthesis*

Substances

  • COVID-19 Vaccines
  • Epitopes
  • Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
  • HLA Antigens
  • Vaccines, Subunit
  • Viral Proteins
  • Viral Vaccines