Development of multi-epitope chimeric vaccine against Taenia solium by exploring its proteome: an in silico approach

ABSTRACT

Objective: Taenia solium is a neglected tropical disease; larvae of this parasite infect central nervous system i.e. Neurocysticercosis, and adults mature and survive into intestine i.e. Taeniasis. Globally more than 50 million people are at the risk of infection. This is one of the main etiological agents for onset of new early epilepsy in developing countries. However, there is no vaccine available to protect human from its infection. Hence, there is an urgent need for a good vaccine.

Methods: We applied immune-informatics approach to design a multi-epitope chimeric vaccine consisting of both B and T-cell epitopes.

Results: From the whole transcriptome of Taenia, we identified five suitable peptides present on cell membrane, epitope identification on these peptides were done by using various immunoinformatic software. Physiochemical properties were determined and the tertiary structure of vaccine was predicted, validated and refined, and to increase antigenicity we added linker to them. Best-modeled protein-complex was used for docking study with TLR1-2, TLR4, TLR3 and TLR7 and stability of molecular complex was determined by molecular dynamics simulation.

Conclusions: Overall, we attempted to design an efficient subunit chimeric vaccine, which could stimulate humoral and cellular immune responses and could protect against both neurocysticercosis and taeniasis.

KEYWORDS:

• Taenia solium
• neurocysticercosis
• parasite
• vaccine
• infection

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was funded by the Department of Biotechnology, India, [BT/PR26841/MED/122/121/2017] and The Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), New Delhi [ECR/2016/000817/LS].