Abstract

COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURAL AND NONSTRUCTURAL POLYPROTEIN OF ZIKA VIRUS TO IDENTIFY T CELL AND B CELL EPITOPES WITH VACCINE POTENTIAL

Sangeetha K., Stella P. G. and Meena K. S.*

ABSTRACT

Background: Zika virus has emerged as a major public health threat due to the rapidly developing neuropathic and teratogenic complications in the infected patients. A better understanding of the immunological basis for Zika Virus and the use of epitope based approach for the development of a vaccine are necessary to curtail this disease due to the lack of licensed medical counter measures. Methods: A multistep immunoinformatic approach was employed to identify the conserved MHC class-I, MHC class-II and B cell linear and conformational epitopes of both the structural and nonstructural polyproteins of Zika virus. Antigenicity prediction, validation of the selected epitopes for their conservancy with the globally available Zika virus strain, population coverage and allergenicity assessment was performed. Results: The study predicted 59 putative CD 8+ T cell epitopes, 369 CD 4+ T cell epitopes of structural and nonstructural polyprotein showing high antigenicity score, 100% conservancy and nil allergenicity. The MHC Class I epitopes TSYNNYSL(38.55%), LLGLLGTV(39.08%), YSQLTPLTL(40.12%) of NSP4 region showed the maximum population coverage followed by the peptides HTMWHVTK(21.07%) of NSP3, WLGARFLEP(22.77%) of NSP5,IERAGDITW(20.42%), AFKVRPALL (20.02%) of NSP2, MMLELDPPF(28.23%), HWNNKEALV (20.02%) and the putative epitopes of MHC Class II showed the world population coverage to 88.62%. The identified potential B cell epitopes are GMSGGTWVD, TPNSPRAEATLGGFGSLGLDCEPR, EEALRGLPVR, RNPNKPGDEYLYGGG, GELNAILEENGVQLT. Conclusion: Further in vitro and in vivo validation pertaining to MHC class I and B Cell immune Elicitation is needed for the identified novel epitope candidates and the development of epitope-based universal vaccine.

Keywords: Zika virus, T Cell epitopes, B Cell epitopes, Bioinformatic analysis.