The design of multiepitope vaccines from plasmids of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli against diarrhoea infection: Immunoinformatics approach

Victoria T Adeleke; Adebayo A Adeniyi; Matthew A Adeleke; Moses Okpeku; David Lokhat

doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104803

The design of multiepitope vaccines from plasmids of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli against diarrhoea infection: Immunoinformatics approach

Infect Genet Evol. 2021 Jul:91:104803. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104803. Epub 2021 Mar 5.

Authors

Victoria T Adeleke¹, Adebayo A Adeniyi², Matthew A Adeleke³, Moses Okpeku³, David Lokhat⁴

Affiliations

¹ Discipline of Chemical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard Campus, Durban 4041, South Africa. Electronic address: adelekev1@ukzn.ac.za.
² Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa; Department of Industrial Chemistry, Federal University, Oye, Ekiti, Nigeria.
³ Discipline of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, P/Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa.
⁴ Discipline of Chemical Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard Campus, Durban 4041, South Africa.

PMID: 33684568
DOI: 10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104803

Abstract

Diarrhoea infection is a major global health public problem and is caused by many organisms including diarrheagenic Escherichia coli pathotypes. The common problem with diarrhoea is the drug resistance of pathogenic bacteria, the most promising alternative means of preventing drug resistance is vaccination. However, there has not been any significant success in the prevention of diarrhoea caused by E. coli through vaccination. Epitope-based vaccine is gaining more attention due to its safety and specificity. Sequence variation of protective antigens of the pathogen has posed a new challenge in the development of epitope-based vaccines against the infection, leading to the necessity of multiepitope based design. In this study, immunoinformatics tools were used to design multiepitope vaccine candidates from plasmid genome sequences of multiple pathotypes of E. coli species involved in diarrhoea infections. The ability of the identified epitopes to be used as a cross-protect multiepitope vaccine was achieved by identifying conserved, immunogenic and antigenic peptides that can elicit CD4⁺ T-cell, CD8⁺ T-cell and B-cell and bind to MHC I and II HLA alleles. The molecular docking results of T-cell epitopes showed their well binding affinity to receptive protein and with a wider population coverage. The different multiepitope-based vaccines (MEVCs) candidates were constructed and based on the types of epitope linker they contained. The MEVCs exhibited very good binding interactions with the human immune receptor. Among multiepitope vaccines constructed, MEVC6, MEVCA and MEVCB are more promising as potential vaccine candidates for cross-protection against gastrointestinal infections according to the computational study. It is also hoped that after validation and testing, the predicted multiepitope-based vaccine candidates will probably resolve the challenge of immunological heterogeneity facing enteric vaccine development.

Keywords: Diarrheagenic E. coli; Epitope-linkers; Gastrointestinal infections; Immune-response; Multiepitope; Vaccine.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Computational Biology / methods*
Diarrhea / prevention & control*
Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / immunology*
Escherichia coli / physiology*
Escherichia coli Vaccines / analysis*
Molecular Docking Simulation*
Vaccine Development*

Substances

Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
Escherichia coli Vaccines