3CL Hydrolase Based Multi Epitope Peptide Vaccine Against Sars-CoV-2 Using Immunoinformatics.

Jakhar, Renu; Kaushik, Samander; Gakhar, S K

The present study provides the first multi-epitope vaccine construct using 3CL hydrolase protein of SARS-CoV-2. The coronavirus 3CL hydrolase (Mpro) enzyme is essential for proteolytic maturation of the virus. This research was based on immunoinformatics and structural vaccinology strategies. The design of the multi epitope vaccine was built using HTLs and CTLs epitopes from 3CL hydrolase protein along with adjuvant to enhance immune response; these are joined to each other by short peptide linkers. The vaccine also carries potential B-cell linear epitope regions, B-cell discontinuous epitopes, and Interferon-γ inducing epitopes. Epitopes of the constructed multi epitope vaccine was found to be antigenic, nonallergic, nontoxic, and cover large human population worldwide. The vaccine construct was modeled, validated and refined by different programs to achieve high-quality 3D structure. The resulting high-quality model was applied for conformational B cell epitope selection and docking analyses with toll-like receptor-3 for understanding the capability of vaccine to elicit an immune response. Insilico cloning and Codon adaptation were also performed into the pET-19b plasmid vector. The designed multi-epitope peptide vaccine may prompt the development of a vaccine to control SARS-CoV-2 infection. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.