Open AccessImmuno-informatics design of a multimeric epitope peptide based vaccine targeting SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein
Author(s) -
Onyeka S. Chukwudozie,
Clive M. Gray,
Tawakalt A. Fagbayi,
Rebecca Chinyelu Chukwuanukwu,
Victor O. Oyebanji,
Taiwo T. Bankole,
Richard Adeniyi Adewole,
Eze M. Daniel
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0248061
Subject(s) - epitope , antigenicity , virology , peptide vaccine , reverse vaccinology , in silico , biology , antigen , adjuvant , t cell , immune system , immunology , genetics , gene
Developing an efficacious vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 infection is critical to stemming COVID-19 fatalities and providing the global community with immune protection. We have used a bioinformatic approach to aid in designing an epitope peptide-based vaccine against the spike protein of the virus. Five antigenic B cell epitopes with viable antigenicity and a total of 27 discontinuous B cell epitopes were mapped out structurally in the spike protein for antibody recognition. We identified eight CD8+ T cell 9-mers and 12 CD4+ T cell 14-15-mer as promising candidate epitopes putatively restricted by a large number of MHC I and II alleles, respectively. We used this information to construct an in silico chimeric peptide vaccine whose translational rate was highly expressed when cloned in pET28a (+) vector. With our In silico test, the vaccine construct was predicted to elicit high antigenicity and cell-mediated immunity when given as a homologous prime-boost, triggering of toll-like receptor 5 by the adjuvant linker. The vaccine was also characterized by an increase in IgM and IgG and an array of Th1 and Th2 cytokines. Upon in silico challenge with SARS-CoV-2, there was a decrease in antigen levels using our immune simulations. We, therefore, propose that potential vaccine designs consider this approach.