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 CTL and HTL MEVs were generated by the Codon Usage Wrangler Tool with a mammalian host cell line (human) as the choice of the expression system. The GenScript Rare Codon Analysis Tool showed that the GC content of optimized CTL MEV cDNA was 69.74% and CAI score was 1.0 with 0% tandem rare codons. Likewise, the GC content of optimized HTL MEV cDNA was 66.63%, and the CAI score was 1.0 with 0% tandem rare codons. Ideally, the GC content should be 30%-70%, the CAI score indicating the possibility of cDNA expression in the chosen expression system should be between 0.8 and 1.0, and tandem rare codon frequency indicating the percentage of low-frequency codons present in cDNA for the chosen expression system should be <30%. Tandem rare codons may hinder the expression of cDNA or even interrupt the translational machinery. Hence, the optimized cDNAs of both MEVs are predicted to be highly expressing in the mammalian host cell line (human).