Attenuated Subcomponent Vaccine Design Targeting the SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Phosphoprotein RNA Binding Domain: In Silico Analysis.

Attenuated Subcomponent Vaccine Design Targeting the SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid Phosphoprotein RNA Binding Domain: In Silico Analysis. J Immunol Res. 2020;2020:2837670 Authors: Chukwudozie OS, Chukwuanukwu RC, Iroanya OO, Eze DM, Duru VC, Dele-Alimi TO, Kehinde BD, Bankole TT, Obi PC, Okinedo EU Abstract The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has previously never been identified with humans, thereby creating devastation in public health. The need for an effective vaccine to curb this pandemic cannot be overemphasized. In view of this, we designed a subcomponent antigenic peptide vaccine targeting the N-terminal (NT) and C-terminal (CT) RNA binding domains of the nucleocapsid protein that aid in viral replication. Promising antigenic B cell and T cell epitopes were predicted using computational pipelines. The peptides "RIRGGDGKMKDL" and "AFGRRGPEQTQGNFG" were the B cell linear epitopes with good antigenic index and nonallergenic property. Two CD8+ and Three CD4+ T cell epitopes were also selected considering their safe immunogenic profiling such as allergenicity, antigen level conservancy, antigenicity, peptide toxicity, and putative restrictions to a number of MHC-I and MHC-II alleles. With these selected epitopes, a nonallergenic chimeric peptide vaccine incapable of inducing a type II hypersensitivity reaction was constructed. The molecular interaction between th...
Source: Journal of Immunology Research - Category: Allergy & Immunology Tags: J Immunol Res Source Type: research