Design of a multi-epitope subunit vaccine for immune-protection against Leishmania parasite. (16th November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Yadav, Sunita; Prakash, Jay; Shukla, Harish; Das, Kanhu Charan; Tripathi, Timir; Dubey, Vikash Kumar
• Is Part Of: Pathogens and global health. Volume 114:Number 8(2020)
• Page Start: 471
• Page End: 481
• Publication Date: 2020-11-16
• Subjects: Hypothetical proteins -- peptide vaccine -- epitopes -- MHC -- visceral leishmaniasis -- molecular dynamics simulation, Immunoinformatics; Communicable diseases -- Periodicals; Public health -- International cooperation -- Periodicals; World health -- Periodicals; 362.1969
• DOI: 10.1080/20477724.2020.1842976
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2047-7724

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) is an insect-borne neglected disease caused by the protozoan parasite Leishmania donovani . In the absence of a commercial vaccine against VL, chemotherapy is currently the only option used for the treatment of VL. Vaccination has been considered as the most effective and powerful tool for complete eradication and control of infectious diseases. In this study, we aimed to design a peptide-based vaccine against L. donovani using immuno-bioinformatic tools. We identified 6 HTL, 18 CTL, and 25 B-cell epitopes from three hypothetical membrane proteins of L. donovani . All these epitopes were used to make a vaccine construct along with linkers. An adjuvant was also added at the N-terminal to enhance its immunogenicity. After that, we checked the quality of this vaccine construct and found that it is nontoxic, nonallergic, and thermally stable. A 3D structure of the vaccine construct was also generated by homology modeling to evaluate its interaction with innate immune receptors (TLR). Molecular docking was performed, which confirmed its binding with a toll-like receptor-2 (TLR-2). The stability of vaccine-TLR-2 complex and underlying interactions were evaluated using molecular dynamic simulation. Lastly, we carried out in silico cloning to check the expression of the final designed vaccine. The designed vaccine construct needs further experimental and clinical investigations to develop it as a safe and effective vaccine against VL infection.