Human coronavirus (HCoV), a member of Coronaviridae family, is the causative agent of upper respiratory tract infections and “atypical pneumonia”. Despite severe epidemic outbreaks on several occasions and lack of antiviral drug, not much progress has been made with regard to an epitope-based vaccine designed for HCoV. In this study, a computational approach was adopted to identify a multiepitope vaccine candidate against this virus that could be suitable to trigger a significant immune response. Sequences of the spike proteins were collected from a protein database and analyzed with an in silico tool, to identify the most immunogenic protein. Both T cell immunity and B cell immunity were checked for the peptides to ensure that they had the capacity to induce both humoral and cell-mediated immunity. The peptide sequence from 88–94 amino acids and the sequence KSSTGFVYF were found as the most potential B cell and T cell epitopes, respectively. Furthermore, conservancy analysis was also done using in silico tools and showed a conservancy of 64.29% for all epitopes. The peptide sequence could interact with as many as 16 human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) and showed high cumulative population coverage, ranging from 75.68% to 90.73%. The epitope was further tested for binding against the HLA molecules, using in silico docking techniques, to verify the binding cleft epitope interaction. The allergenicity of the epitopes was also evaluated. This computational study of design of an epitope-based peptide vaccine against HCoVs allows us to determine novel peptide antigen targets in spike proteins on intuitive grounds, albeit the preliminary results thereof require validation by in vitro and in vivo experiments.

This study evaluated the physicochemical, nutritional, antioxidant, and phenolic properties of ten honey samples from the Sundarbans mangrove forest, Bangladesh. The average pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solid, ash, moisture, hydroxymethyl furfural, titrable acidity, and absorbance were 4.3, 0.38 mS/cm, 187.5 ppm, 0.14%, 17.88%, 4.4 mg/kg, 37.7 meq/kg, and 483 mAU, respectively. In the honeys, the average contents of Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, and Na were 95.5, 0.19, 6.4, 302, 39.9, 3.4, and 597 ppm, respectively, whereas Cd, Cr, Pb, and Ni were not found. The average contents of total sugar, protein, lipid, vitamin C, polyphenols, flavonoids, and anthocyanins in the honeys were 69.3%, 0.8%, 0.29%, 107.3 mg/kg, 757.2 mg gallic acid equivalent/kg, 43.1 mg chatechin equivalent/kg, and 5.4 mg/kg, respectively. The honeys had strong 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl free radical scavenging activity, reducing power and total antioxidant capacity. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis of the honey fractions revealed the quantification of six polyphenols namely, (+)-catechin, (−)-epicatechin, p-caumeric acid, syringic acid, trans-cinnamic acid, and vanillic acid at 194.98, 330.34, 74.64, 218.97, 49.55, and 118.84 mg/kg, respectively. Therefore, the honeys in the Sundarbans are of excellent quality and a prospective source of polyphenols, and antioxidants.

Shigellosis, a bacillary dysentery, is closely associated with diarrhoea in human and causes infection of 165 million people worldwide per year. Casein-degrading serine protease autotransporter of enterobacteriaceae (SPATE) subfamily protein SigA, an outer membrane protein, exerts both cytopathic and enterotoxic effects especially cytopathic to human epithelial cell type-2 (HEp-2) and is shown to be highly immunogenic. In the present study, we have tried to impose the vaccinomics approach for designing a common peptide vaccine candidate against the immunogenic SigA of Shigella spp. At first, 44 SigA proteins from different variants of S. flexneri, S. dysenteriae, S. boydii, and S. sonnei were assessed to find the most antigenic protein. We retrieved 12 peptides based on the highest score for human leukocyte antigen (HLA) supertypes analysed by NetCTL. Initially, these peptides were assessed for the affinity with MHC class I and class II alleles, and four potential core epitopes VTARAGLGY, FHTVTVNTL, HTTWTLTGY, and IELAGTLTL were selected. From these, FHTVTVNTL and IELAGTLTL peptides were shown to have 100% conservancy. Finally, IELAGTLTL was shown to have the highest population coverage (83.86%) among the whole world population. In vivo study of the proposed epitope might contribute to the development of functional and unique widespread vaccine, which might be an operative alleyway to thwart dysentery from the world.

Highlights The COVID‐19 pandemic caused by SARS‐CoV‐2 poses a global health emergency. To date, there is no FDA approved therapeutics available for SARS‐CoV‐2. In-silico studies confirm the attachment inhibitor capacity of the screened compounds. Four Novel viral attachment inhibitors were designed. Novel inhibitors showed promising drug properties over existing proposed inhibitors.

Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is a tick-borne zoonotic viral disease with a disease fatality rate between 15% and 70%. Despite the wide range of distribution, the virus (CCHFV) is basically endemic in Africa, Asia, eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Acute febrile illness associated with petechiae, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and multiple-organ failure are the main symptoms of the disease. With all these fatal effects, CCHFV is considered a huge threat as no successful therapeutic approach is currently available for the treatment of this disease. In the present study, we have used the immunoinformatics approach to design a potential epitope-based vaccine against the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase-L of CCHFV. Both the T-cell and B-cell epitopes were assessed, and the epitope “DCSSTPPDR” was found to be the most potential one, with 100% conservancy among all the strains of CCHFV. The epitope was also found to interact with both type I and II major histocompatibility complex molecules and is considered nonallergenic as well. In vivo study of our proposed peptide is advised for novel universal vaccine production, which might be an effective path to prevent CCHF disease.