Epitope-based chimeric peptide vaccine design against S, M and E proteins of SARS-CoV-2 etiologic agent of global pandemic COVID-19: an in silico approach

M. Shaminur Rahman; M. Nazmul Hoque; M. Rafiul Islam; Salma Akter; A. S. M. Rubayet-Ul-Alam; Mohammad Anwar Siddique; Otun Saha; Md. Mizanur Rahaman; Munawar Sultana; M. Anwar Hossain

The immune-stimulatory ability of the predicted vaccine CoV-RMEN was conducted 329 through the C-ImmSimm server. The analysis predicts the generation of adaptive immunity in 330 target host species (human) using position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM), and machine learning 331 . CC-BY 4.0 International license author/funder. It is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.015164 doi: bioRxiv preprint techniques for the prediction of epitopes and immune interactions 28 . The cumulative results of 332 immune responses after three times antigen exposure with four weeks interval each time revealed 333 that the primary immune response against the antigenic fragments was elevated indicated by 334 gradual increase of IgM level after each antigen exposure (Fig. 7a) . Besides, the secondary The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.015164 doi: bioRxiv preprint complexes of CoV-RMEN and TLRs were predicted (Fig. 8 , Table 3 ). The relative binding free 355 energies (ΔG) of the protein-TLRs complexes were significantly negative (Table 3) content is between 30% and 70% ( Fig. 9 a,b,c) . The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.015164 doi: bioRxiv preprint