Structural basis of development of multi-epitope vaccine against Middle East respiratory syndrome using in silico approach

Srivastava, Sukrit; Kamthania, Mohit; Singh, Soni; Saxena, Ajay K; Sharma, Nishi

Optimized cDNAs for both MEVs were generated by the Codon Usage Wrangler Tool with the option of a mammalian host cell line (human) as the expression system (http://www. mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ms/methods/codon.html). Further, the GenScript Rare Codon Analysis Tool (https://www.genscript. com/tools/rare-codon-analysis) was used to analyze the cDNAs of both MEVs. The tool provides GC content, codon adaptation index (CAI), and tandem rare codon frequency for cDNA. [65] [66] [67] Results and discussion screening of potential epitopes T-cell epitope prediction screening of cTl epitope On the basis of "total score" and acceptably low IC50 (nM) value of epitope-HLA class I allele pairs, 75 CD8+ CTL epitopes were chosen. Later, 28 epitopes were shortlisted with high scoring and larger number of HLA class I allele binders for further studies. Immunogenicity of the screened CTL epitopes was also determined. The higher the immunogenicity score, the greater is the immunogenicity of the epitope (Tables S3 and S4) .