Immunoinformatics study to search epitopes of spike glycoprotein from SARS-CoV-2 as potential vaccine

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease named COVID-19 is caused by the virus reported in 2019 first identified in China. The cases of this disease have increased and as of June 1^st, 2020 there are more than 216 countries affected. Pharmacological treatments have been proposed based on the resemblance of the HIV virus. With regard to prevention there is no vaccine, thus, we proposed to explore the spike protein due to its presence on the viral surface, and it also contains the putative viral entry receptor as well as the fusion peptide (important in the genome release). In this work we have employed In Silico techniques such as immunoinformatics tools which permit the identification of potential immunogenic regions on the viral surface (spike glycoprotein). From these analyses, we identified four epitopes E332-370, E627-651, E440-464 and E694-715 that accomplish essential features such as promiscuity, conservation grade, exposure and universality, and they also form stable complexes with MHCII molecule. We suggest that these epitopes could generate a specific immune response, and thus, they could be used for future applications such as the design of new epitope vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Keywords:

• Epitope
• vaccine
• SARS-CoV-2
• coronavirus
• spike glycoprotein

Acknowledgements

We thank to CONACYT Project 254600. GLRS, JGM, JCB, MMA, are members of the National System of Researchers, SNI.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.