Immuno-informatics Design of a Multimeric Epitope Peptide Based Vaccine Targeting SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein

Developing an efficacious vaccine to SARS-CoV-2 infection is critical to stem COVID-19 fatalities and providing the global community with immune protection. We have used a bioinformatic approach to aid in the design of an epitope peptide-based vaccine against the spike protein of the virus. Five ant...

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Published inbioRxiv
Main Authors Chukwudozie, Onyeka S, Gray, Clive M, Fagbayi, Tawakalt A, Chukwuanukwu, Rebecca C, Oyebanji, Victor O, Bankole, Taiwo T, Adewole, Richard A, Eze, Daniel M
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 30.07.2020
Subjects
Antigenicity
CD4 antigen
CD8 antigen
Cell-mediated immunity
COVID-19
Cytokines
Epitopes
Immunoglobulin G
Immunoglobulin M
Informatics
Lymphocytes T
Major histocompatibility complex
Peptides
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Spike glycoprotein
Spike protein
Toll-like receptors
Vaccines
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Summary:Developing an efficacious vaccine to SARS-CoV-2 infection is critical to stem COVID-19 fatalities and providing the global community with immune protection. We have used a bioinformatic approach to aid in the design of 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 along with 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. The vaccine construct was predicted to elicit high antigenicity and cell-mediated immunity when given as a homologous prime-boost, with triggering of toll-like receptor 5 by the adjuvant linker. The vaccine was 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. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
DOI:10.1101/2020.07.30.228221