| Autor: |
Abass OA; Department of Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, Centre for BioCode, Benin, Nigeria.; Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria., Timofeev VI; Shubnikov Institute of Crystallography of Federal Scientific Research Centre 'Crystallography and Photonics' of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation., Sarkar B; Department of Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh., Onobun DO; Department of Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, Centre for BioCode, Benin, Nigeria.; Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria., Ogunsola SO; Department of Biochemistry, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria., Aiyenuro AE; Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK., Aborode AT; Research & Development, Shaping Women in STEM (SWIS) Africa, Lagos, Nigeria.; Research & Development, Healthy Africans Platform, Ibadan, Nigeria., Aigboje AE; Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria., Omobolanle BN; Department of Biochemistry, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria., Imolele AG; Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Life Sciences, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria., Abiodun AA; Bio-Computing Research Unit, Molecular Biology & Simulations (Mols & Sims) Centre, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. |
| Abstrakt: |
Lassa mammarenavirus (LASMV) is responsible for a specific type of acute viral hemorrhagic fever known as Lassa fever. Lack of effective treatments and counter-measures against the virus has resulted in a high mortality rate in its endemic regions. Therefore, in this study, a novel epitope-based vaccine has been designed using the methods of immunoinformatics targeting the glycoprotein and nucleoprotein of the virus. After numerous robust analyses, two CTL epitopes, eight HTL epitopes and seven B-cell epitopes were finally selected for constructing the vaccine. All these most promising epitopes were found to be antigenic, non-allergenic, nontoxic and non-human homolog, which made them suitable for designing the subunit vaccine. Furthermore, the selected T-cell epitopes which were found to be fully conserved across different isolates of the virus, were also considered for final vaccine construction. After that, numerous validation experiments, i.e. molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulation and immune simulation were conducted, which predicted that our designed vaccine should be stable within the biological environment and effective in combating the LASMV infection. In the end, codon adaptation and in silico cloning studies were performed to design a recombinant plasmid for producing the vaccine industrially. However, further in vitro and in vivo assessments should be done on the constructed vaccine to finally confirm its safety and efficacy.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma. |
