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

Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a respiratory disease caused by Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). MERS involves high fever, cough, difficulty in breathing, chills, chest pain, body aches, sore throat, diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, running nose, renal failure, and pneumonia. The first case of MERS in humans was reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. After 2012, within a span of only 4 years, MERS-CoV infection was reported from 27 countries. 1 Three MERS outbreaks have already occurred in Saudi Arabia (2013 and 2014) and South Korea (2015). [2] [3] [4] The outbreak reported in South Korea also involved spread of MERS through hospital-to-hospital transit of patients and had the fatality rate as high as 40%. High attack rate and easy spread of MERS indicate an epidemic risk. [5] [6] [7] To date, no specific vaccine is available for MERS. The steep increase in MERS cases and its high mortality rate demand an urgent need for specific and safe MERS vaccine. Thus far, only little information is known about the pathogenesis of MERS-CoV. Hence, an immunoinformatics approach to thoroughly study and screen immunogenic proteins from the available proteome sequence data of MERS-CoV is essential for vaccine design.