In silico design of epitope-based peptide vaccine against non-typhoidal Salmonella through immunoinformatic approaches

Abstract

Non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) is one of the leading bacterial causes of many invasive human infections with a high antibiotic resistance profile. With this concern, the current study aimed to design an effective epitope-based peptide vaccine against NTS species as a successive and substitutive protective measure of invasive NTS disease. To design rationally, the current study considered a comprehensive in silico workflow combination of both immunoinformatics and molecular modeling approaches, including molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. We identified the two most promising T cell epitopes KVLYGIFAI and YGIFAITAL, and three B cell epitopes AAPVQVGEAAGS, TGGGDGSNT, and TGGGDGSNTGTTTT, in the outer membrane of NTS. Using these epitopes, a multiepitope vaccine was subsequently constructed along with appropriate adjuvant and linkers, which showed a good binding affinity and stability with toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) in both molecular docking and MD simulation. Furthermore, in silico immune simulation described a strong immune response with a high number of antibodies, interferon-γ, and activated B and T cells. This study collectively suggests that predicted vaccine constructs could be considered potential vaccine candidates against common NTS species.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Keywords:

• Salmonella
• vaccine
• immunoinformatic
• epitope
• molecular docking
• molecular dynamics simulation

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Zulkar Nain, Department of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Islamic University, Kushtia 7003, Bangladesh for his valuable suggestions to improve the quality of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

All authors declared there are no conflicts of interest.

Authors contribution

R.D. and M.M.R. the conceived experiment. M.C.A. designed and ran the experiment. M.C.A., M.S.K., S.I.J., R.D., and Y.A.M. analyzed the data. M.C.A. wrote the manuscript. R.D. and M.M.R. reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors revised the manuscript and agreed to the submission.

Additional information

Funding

A grant partially supported this work (No. 141/Edu./IU-2018/961) of Islamic University, Kushtia, funded by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh.