An immunoinformatics study: designing multivalent T-cell epitope vaccine against canine circovirus

• Published in: Journal of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 121 - 11
• Main Authors: Jain, Pankaj, Joshi, Amit, Akhtar, Nahid, Krishnan, Sunil, Kaushik, Vikas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 18.08.2021; Springer; Springer Nature B.V; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adjuvants; Algorithms; Amino acids; Antigenic determinants; Antigens; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; biotechnology; Canine circovirus; capsid; Capsid protein; Cell division; Circovirus; Cloning; coat proteins; Codon; computer simulation; cost effectiveness; Design; Dog leukocyte antigen; Dogs; E coli; Engineering; Enteritis; Epitope; Epitopes; Escherichia coli; Escherichia coli K12; foxes; Gastroenteritis; Genetic transcription; genome; Genomes; Genomics; Health aspects; Hemorrhage; Hemorrhagic enteritis; Immune response; Immune system; immunoinformatics; Infections; Informatics; Lymphocytes T; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Molecular docking; Molecular dynamic simulations; Molecular dynamics; Neural networks; Open reading frames; Pathogenesis; pathogens; Peptides; Proteins; Replicase; Screening; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Simulation; Swine; T cells; T-lymphocytes; Vaccine designing; Vaccines; Vasculitis; Viral proteins; Viruses; United States > US; Italy; China; Molecular dynamic simulations; Canine circovirus; Vaccine designing; Epitope; Dog leukocyte antigen; Molecular docking
• ISSN: 1687-157X; 2090-5920; 2090-5920
• DOI: 10.1186/s43141-021-00220-4

Background Canine circovirus is a deadly pathogen of dogs and causes vasculitis and hemorrhagic enteritis. It causes lethal gastroenteritis in pigs, fox, and dogs. Canine circovirus genome contains two main (and opposite) transcription units which encode two open reading frames (ORFs), a replicase-associated protein (Rep) and the capsid (Cap) protein. The replicase protein and capsid protein consist of 303 amino acids and 270 amino acids respectively. Several immuno-informatics methods such as epitope screening, molecular docking, and molecular-dynamics simulations were used to craft peptide-based vaccine construct against canine circovirus. Results The vaccine construct was designed by joining the selected epitopes with adjuvants by suitable linker. The cloning and expression of the vaccine construct was also performed using in silico methods. Screening of epitopes was conducted by NetMHC server that uses ANN (Artificial neural networking) algorithm. These methods are fast and cost-effective for screening epitopes that can interact with dog leukocyte antigens (DLA) and initiate an immune response. Overall, 5 epitopes, YQHLPPFRF, YIRAKWINW, ALYRRLTLI, HLQGFVNLK, and GTMNFVARR, were selected and used to design a vaccine construct. The molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies show that these epitopes can bind with DLA molecules with stability. The codon adaptation and in silico cloning studies show that the vaccine can be expressed by Escherichia coli K12 strain. Conclusion The results suggest that the vaccine construct can be useful in preventing the dogs from canine circovirus infections. However, the results need further validation by performing other in vitro and in vivo experiments.