Immunoinformatics-Aided Design of a Peptide Based Multiepitope Vaccine Targeting Glycoproteins and Membrane Proteins against Monkeypox Virus

by Nahid Akhtar, Vikas Kaushik, Ravneet Kaur Grewal, Atif Khurshid Wani, Chonticha Suwattanasophon, Kiattawee Choowongkomon, Romina Oliva, Abdul Rajjak Shaikh, Luigi Cavallo, Mohit Chawla
Year: 2022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/v14112374

Extra Information

Viruses.

Abstract

: Monkeypox is a self-limiting zoonotic viral disease and causes smallpox-like symptoms. The disease has a case fatality ratio of 3–6% and, recently, a multi-country outbreak of the disease has occurred. The currently available vaccines that have provided immunization against monkeypox are classified as live attenuated vaccinia virus-based vaccines, which pose challenges of safety and efficacy in chronic infections. In this study, we have used an immunoinformatics-aided design of a multi-epitope vaccine (MEV) candidate by targeting monkeypox virus (MPXV) glycoproteins and membrane proteins. From these proteins, seven epitopes (two T-helper cell epitopes, four Tcytotoxic cell epitopes and one linear B cell epitopes) were finally selected and predicted as antigenic, non-allergic, interferon-γ activating and non-toxic. These epitopes were linked to adjuvants to design a non-allergic and antigenic candidate MPXV-MEV. Further, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations predicted stable interactions between predicted MEV and human receptor TLR5. Finally, the immune-simulation analysis showed that the candidate MPXV-MEV could elicit a human immune response. The results obtained from these in silico experiments are promising but require further validation through additional in vivo experiments.

Keywords

monkeypox monkeypox virus Immunoinformatics epitope-based vaccine orthopoxvirus reverse vaccinology