Immunoinformatics driven construction of multi-epitope vaccine candidate against Ascaris lumbricoides using its entire immunogenic epitopes

• Published in: Expert review of vaccines Vol. 20; no. 12; p. 1637
• Main Authors: Kaur, Rimanpreet, Arora, Naina, Rawat, Suraj Singh, Keshri, Anand Kumar, Singh, Neha, Show, Sumit Kumar, Kumar, Pramod, Mishra, Amit, Prasad, Amit
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England 02.12.2021
• Subjects: Animals; Ascaris lumbricoides; Child; Computational Biology; Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte; Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte; Humans; Molecular Docking Simulation; Molecular Dynamics Simulation; Vaccines, Subunit; Ascaris lumbricoides; infection; parasite; vaccine; immunoinformatics; helminths
• ISSN: 1744-8395
• DOI: 10.1080/14760584.2021.1974298

infects 80 million people per year, causing malnutrition, stunted growth of children etc., but there is no vaccine available against it. We aimed to design a multimeric-subunit vaccine using comprehensive immunoinformatic approach. The T and B cell epitopes were shortlisted on antigenicity, allergenicity, and toxicity from proteome data and joined with appropriate linkers. The physical characteristics of vaccine candidate was calculated and docking/molecular dynamic simulation performed to validate its robustness. The multimeric protein was codon optimized and in-silico cloned in pET28b. From the 23,604 proteins of Ascaris, we filtered based on epitope prediction, localization, antigenicity, and allergenicity. Prepared a vaccine of 534 amino acid long, 56.31 kD weight and pI 4.52. Physiochemical features showed it is soluble, highly antigenic and non-allergenic. Its tertiary structure was forecasted, certified, and refined. The immunoinformatic simulation studies showed it to be potent T and B cell stimulator. We identified highly antigenic peptides of Ascaris from its proteome with good potential to induce innate as well as humoral immune response. These peptides were used to design a chimeric vaccine against Ascariasis infection, which can be used for prophylactic purpose but needs experimental and clinical validation.