SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2) is a newly emerged beta coronavirus and etiolating agent of COVID-19. Considering the unprecedented increasing number of COVID-19 cases, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency internationally on 11^th March 2020. However, existing drugs are insufficient in dealing with this contagious virus infection; therefore, a vaccine is exigent to curb this pandemic disease. In the present study, B- and T-cell immune epitopes were identified for RdRp (RNA-dependent RNA polymerase) protein using immunoinformatic techniques, which is proved to be a rapid and efficient method to explore the candidate peptide vaccine. Subsequently, antigenicity and interactions with HLA (human leukocyte antigen) alleles were estimated. Further, physicochemical properties, allergenicity, toxicity, and stability of RdRp protein were evaluated to demonstrate the specificity of the epitope candidates. Interestingly, we identified a total of 36 B-cell and 16 T-cell epitopes using epitopes predictive tools. Among the predicted epitopes, 26 B-cell and 9 T-cell epitopes showed non-allergenic, non-toxic, and highly antigenic properties. Altogether, our study revealed that RdRp of SARS-CoV-2 (an epitope-based peptide fragment) can be a potentially good candidate for the development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.

中文翻译：

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SARS-CoV-2 RNA 依赖性 RNA 聚合酶中 B 和 T 细胞表位的免疫信息学鉴定

SARS-CoV-2（严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒-2）是一种新出现的 β 冠状病毒，也是 COVID-19 的黄化剂。鉴于COVID-19病例数量空前增加，世界卫生组织于2020年3月11日宣布国际公共卫生紧急状态。^然而，现有药物不足以应对这种传染性病毒感染；因此，迫切需要疫苗来遏制这种大流行病。本研究利用免疫信息学技术鉴定了RdRp（RNA依赖性RNA聚合酶）蛋白的B和T细胞免疫表位，这被证明是探索候选肽疫苗的快速有效的方法。随后，评估了抗原性以及与 HLA（人类白细胞抗原）等位基因的相互作用。此外，还评估了 RdRp 蛋白的理化性质、过敏性、毒性和稳定性，以证明候选表位的特异性。有趣的是，我们使用表位预测工具总共鉴定了 36 个 B 细胞和 16 个 T 细胞表位。在预测的表位中，26个B细胞表位和9个T细胞表位表现出非过敏性、无毒性和高抗原性。总而言之，我们的研究表明，SARS-CoV-2 的 RdRp（一种基于表位的肽片段）可能是开发 SARS-CoV-2 疫苗的潜在良好候选者。