One of the most effective strategies for eliminating new and emerging infectious diseases is effective immunization. The pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) warrants the need for a maximum coverage vaccine. Moreover, mutations that arise within the virus have a significant impact on the vaccination strategy. Here, we built a comprehensive in silico workflow pipeline to identify B-cell- and T-cell-stimulating antigens of SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins. Our in silico reverse vaccinology (RV) approach consisted of two parts: (1) analysis of the selected viral proteins based on annotated cellular location, antigenicity, allele coverage, epitope density, and mutation density and (2) analysis of the various aspects of the epitopes, including antigenicity, allele coverage, IFN-γ induction, toxicity, host homology, and site mutational density. After performing a mutation analysis based on the contemporary mutational amino acid substitutions observed in the viral variants, 13 potential epitopes were selected as subunit vaccine candidates. Despite mutational amino acid substitutions, most epitope sequences were predicted to retain immunogenicity without toxicity and host homology. Our RV approach using an in silico pipeline may potentially reduce the time required for effective vaccine development and can be applicable for vaccine development for other pathogenic diseases as well.
【저자키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, immunoinformatics, antigens, epitope discovery, reverse vaccinology, in silico Approach, 【초록키워드】 Vaccine, Vaccine development, coronavirus, immunogenicity, pandemic, Mutation, Infectious diseases, Emerging infectious diseases, Toxicity, Viral proteins, Proteins, Infectious disease, in silico, severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus, virus, immunization, Antigen, Epitopes, Coverage, Viral, Viral variants, Subunit vaccine, antigenicity, respiratory, epitope, disease, IFN-γ, B-cell, Amino acid, cellular, Analysis, amino acid substitutions, Vaccination strategy, acute respiratory syndrome, Viral protein, epitope density, subunit, acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, sequence, homology, allele, pathogenic, vaccine candidates, amino acid substitution, Host, approach, effective, SARS-CoV-2 viral, selected, predicted, identify, caused, required, reduce, eliminating, effective strategy, 【제목키워드】 identification,