Abstract
Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection is a global epidemic that is spreading dramatically from day today. Currently, many efforts have been made against COVID-19 through the designing or developing of specific vaccines or drugs, worldwide. Unfortunately, to date, it has not been successful. Therefore, an effective vaccine against COVID-19 is mandatory. In this study, we used the bioinformatics approach to design an effective multi-epitope vaccine against COVID-19 based on Spike protein. Here, we implemented in silico tools to identify potential T and B cell epitopes that can induce cellular and humoral immunity. Then, the peptide sequence of potential T, B cell epitopes, and flagellin (as an adjuvant molecule) was joined together by suitable linkers to construct of candidate multi-epitope vaccine (MEV). Subsequently, immunological and structural evaluations such as antigenicity, 3D modeling, etc. were performed. In the following, molecular docking of vaccine constructs with Toll-Like Receptors 5 (TLR5), Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation as well as in silico cloning were carried out. Immunological and structural computational data showed that designed MEV potentially has proper capacity for inducing cellular and humoral immune responses against COVID-19. Based on the preliminary results, in vitro and in vivo experiments are required for validation in the future.
Keywords: COVID-19, Vaccine, Reverse Vaccinology, Multi-epitope, Molecular docking, MD Simulation.
In silico prediction of b-cell epitopes of dengue virus – A reverse vaccinology approach