Immuno-informatics guided designing of a multi-epitope vaccine against Dengue and Zika

Abstract

Dengue and zika are amongst the most prevalent mosquito-borne diseases caused by closely related members Dengue virus (DENV) and Zika virus (ZIKV), respectively, of the Flaviviridae family. DENV and ZIKV have been reported to co-infect several people, resulting in fatalities across the world. A vaccine that can safeguard against both these pathogens concurrently, can offer several advantages. This study has employed immuno-informatics for devising a multi-epitope, multi-pathogenic vaccine against both these viruses. Since, the two viruses share a common vector source, whose salivary components are reported to aid viral pathogenesis; antigenic salivary proteins from Aedes aegypti were also incorporated into the design of the vaccine along with conserved structural and non-structural viral proteins. Conserved B- and T-cell epitopes were identified for all the selected antigenic proteins. These epitopes were merged and further supplemented with β-defensin as an adjuvant, to yield an immunogenic vaccine construct. In-silico 3D modeling and structural validation of the vaccine construct was conducted, followed by its molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies with human TLR2. Immune simulation study was also performed, and it further provided support that the designed vaccine can mount an effective immune response and hence provide protection against both DENV and ZIKV.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Keywords:

• Multi-epitope
• multi-pathogenic
• immuno-informatics
• Dengue virus
• Zika virus
• vaccine

Acknowledgment

R.S. is thankful to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India for the Senior Research Fellowship. A.G. is thankful to University Grant Commission, India for the faculty Recharge position.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicting interests.

Funding

This research did not receive specific grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Data availability statement

All datasets generated for this report are included in the article/Supplementary Material.

Author contributions

A.B. and R.S. conceptualized and visualized the whole study. A.B. and R.S. designed and conducted the experimental studies and drafted the manuscript. A.G. managed resources and reviewed the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.