Preliminary identification of potential vaccine targets for the COVID-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) based on SARS-CoV immunological studies

Syed Faraz Ahmed; Ahmed A. Quadeer; Matthew R. McKay

Given the close genetic similarity between the structural proteins of SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, we attempted to leverage immunological studies of the structural proteins of SARS-CoV to potentially aid vaccine development for SARS-CoV-2. We focused specifically on the S and N proteins as these are known to induce potent and long-lived immune responses in SARS-CoV (Channappanavar et al., 2014; Deming et al., 2006; Graham et al., 2012; W. J. Liu et al., 2017; X Liu et al., 2004; J. Wang et al., 2003; Yang et al., 2004) . We used the available SARS-CoV-derived experimentally-determined epitope data (see Materials and Methods) and searched to identify T cell and B cell epitopes that were identicaland hence potentially cross-reactive-across SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. We first report the analysis for T cell epitopes, which have been shown to provide a long-lasting immune response against SARS-CoV (Channappanavar et al., 2014) , followed by a discussion of B cell epitopes.