A Vaccine Construction against COVID-19-Associated Mucormycosis Contrived with Immunoinformatics-Based Scavenging of Potential Mucoralean Epitopes

Abstract

Mucormycosis is a group of infections, caused by multiple fungal species, which affect many human organs and is lethal in immunocompromised patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the current wave of mucormycosis is a challenge to medical professionals as its effects are multiplied because of the severity of COVID-19 infection. The variant of concern, Omicron, has been linked to fatal mucormycosis infections in the US and Asia. Consequently, current postdiagnostic treatments of mucormycosis have been rendered unsatisfactory. In this hour of need, a preinfection cure is needed that may prevent lethal infections in immunocompromised individuals. This study proposes a potential vaccine construct targeting mucor and rhizopus species responsible for mucormycosis infections, providing immunoprotection to immunocompromised patients. The vaccine construct, with an antigenicity score of 0.75 covering, on average, 92–98% of the world population, was designed using an immunoinformatics approach. Molecular interactions with major histocompatibility complex-1 (MHC-I), Toll-like receptors-2 (TLR2), and glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), with scores of −896.0, −948.4, and −925.0, respectively, demonstrated its potential to bind with the human immune receptors. It elicited a strong predicted innate and adaptive immune response in the form of helper T (Th) cells, cytotoxic T (TC) cells, B cells, natural killer (NK) cells, and macrophages. The vaccine cloned in the pBR322 vector showed positive amplification, further solidifying its stability and potential. The proposed construct holds a promising approach as the first step towards an antimucormycosis vaccine and may contribute to minimizing postdiagnostic burdens and failures.

Designing Novel Multi-Epitope Vaccine Construct against Prevotella intermedia-Interpain A: An Immunoinformatics Approach

“…The Protein Data Bank (PDB) database was used to retrieve the amino acid (FASTA) reference identity (ID) of 3BBA, which belongs to P. intermedia . The antigenic peptides prediction tool ( ) (accessed on 12 March 2022) and the AllerTop v2.0 servers ( ) (accessed on 12 March 2022) were used to screen 3BBA for average antigenic propensity and allergenicity [ 12 ].…”

“…Computational immunology, often known as immunoinformatics, is a subfield of bioinformatics that uses bioinformatics methods to comprehend and analyze immunological data [ 12 ]. Utilizing databases and other technologies to predict B- and T-cell epitopes is one of the most researched aspects of applied immunology.…”

Possible oral manifestation after vaccination against COVID-19: a case report

“…While this may not be a severe adverse effect resulting from the vaccination, it can be considered one that must be explored and studied further during long-term clinical trials. Many efforts have been made to study the oral manifestations of COVID-19 infections, and a similar effort is needed to explore the potential oral effects of vaccination [ 5 , 6 ].…”

Designing mRNA- and Peptide-Based Vaccine Construct against Emerging Multidrug-Resistant Citrobacter freundii: A Computational-Based Subtractive Proteomics Approach

“…Formerly, vaccines were produced from attenuated, weakened, and dead pathogens, providing imperishable protection, but curtailing the vaccines’ swift and mass production of immunoinformatics-approach-based vaccine construct could be helpful in this regard as it involves specific antigens to the immune system to induce an adaptive immune response against bacterial infection, abating the time and cost of vaccine construction [ 9 ]. The computational-based peptide as well as mRNA vaccines have been designed against several viruses, such as COVID-19, and bacteria too [ 10 , 11 , 12 ].…”