Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 has been efficient in ensuring that many countries are brought to a standstill. With repercussions ranging from rampant mortality, fear, paranoia, and economic recession, the virus has brought together countries to look at possible therapeutic countermeasures. With prophylactic interventions possibly months away from being particularly effective, a slew of measures and possibilities concerning the design of vaccines are being worked upon. We attempted a structure-based approach utilizing a combination of epitope prediction servers and Molecular dynamic (MD) simulations to develop a multi-epitope-based subunit vaccine that involves the two subunits of the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 (S1 and S2) coupled with a substantially effective chimeric adjuvant to create stable vaccine constructs. The designed constructs were evaluated based on their docking with Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) 4. Our findings provide an epitope-based peptide fragment that can be a potential candidate for the development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Recent experimental studies based on determining immunodominant regions across the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 indicate the presence of the predicted epitopes included in this study.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

摘要

SARS-CoV-2 有效地确保了许多国家陷入停滞。该病毒造成了高死亡率、恐惧、偏执和经济衰退等一系列影响，促使各国齐聚一堂，研究可能的治疗对策。由于预防性干预措施可能需要几个月的时间才能特别有效，因此正在研究有关疫苗设计的一系列措施和可能性。我们尝试采用基于结构的方法，结合表位预测服务器和分子动力学 (MD) 模拟来开发基于多表位的亚单位疫苗，其中涉及 SARS-CoV-2 刺突糖蛋白的两个亚单位（S1 和 S2） ）与实质上有效的嵌合佐剂结合以创建稳定的疫苗构建体。根据设计的构建体与 Toll 样受体 (TLR) 4 的对接进行评估。我们的研究结果提供了一种基于表位的肽片段，可以作为开发 SARS-CoV-2 疫苗的潜在候选者。最近基于确定 SARS-CoV-2 刺突糖蛋白免疫显性区域的实验研究表明，本研究中包含的预测表位的存在。

拉马斯瓦米·萨尔马 (Ramaswamy H. Sarma) 通讯