Chandipura virus (CHPV) is an emerging pathogen responsible for acute encephalitic syndrome (AES) in pediatric population in India. Several outbreaks of CHPV have been reported from different states of India since the year 2003. At present there is no vaccine or therapeutic measures available to curtail the disease. In this study, we have identified both T-cell and B-cell epitopes of different antigenic proteins of CHPV like Nucleoprotein (N), Phosphoprotein (P) and Matrix protein (M) along with the immuno-dominant glycoprotein (G) and conducted in silico characterization for the same. The idea is to design a multi-epitope peptide construct using the epitopes, which were found to be non-toxic, non-allergenic and possessing high immunogenicity. The final multi-epitope construct named as: MEC-CHPV, comprised of β-defensin adjuvant at N-terminal for enhancement of immunogenicity followed by fourteen B-cell epitopes, four Helper T-cell epitopes and six Cytotoxic T-cell epitopes. The characterization of designed construct was carried out in terms of physicochemical parameters, antigenicity and allergenicity. The 3D structure prediction was performed. Molecular docking and molecular-dynamics simulation of MEC-CHPV with Toll like receptors (TLR-3 and TLR-8) showed stable interactions. In silico cloning of MEC-CHPV in pET30a(+) expression vector was also conducted using codon optimization. The in silico immune-simulation indicated a typical immune response against MEC-CHPV when used as a potential vaccine. This study provides a cost-effective and time-saving way to design a peptide vaccine candidate against CHPV using immuno-informatics approach. Development of the MEC-CHPV construct may pave the way for future laboratory experiments.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.
Keywords: Chandipura virus; in silico cloning; molecular docking; molecular dynamics; multi-epitope construct; vaccine.