An insight into the epitope-based peptide vaccine design strategy and studies against COVID-19

Abstract

IntroductionCoronaviruses belonging to the family Coronaviridae from the members of the order Nidovirales are spherical, enveloped, and single-stranded positive RNA viruses within the diameter range of 60-220 nm, which have rodshaped glycoprotein extensions in their outer surfaces and carry a genome size of 26-32 kb (King et al., 2011;Shereen et al., 2020). Among the coronaviruses, which are classified into four subgroups: alpha (α), beta (β), gamma (γ), and delta (δ) (Kin et al., 2015), the strains that currently infect humans are seven; HCoV229E, HCoV-OC43, SARS-CoV, HCoV-NL63, HCoV-HKU1, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus) (Nomura et al., 2004).Following the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) that occurred in China in 2002, MERS-CoV caused endemic in the Middle East countries in 2013 (Brian and Baric, 2005), while SARS-CoV-2 created pandemics in 2020 1 . The SARS-1 WHO has declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. [online] Website: https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020 [accessed date 25.05.2020]CoV-2, which caused the COVID-19 pandemic, belongs to the group of betacoronavirus and its clinical manifestations are evaluated in three different stages: i) mild; weakness, fever, dry cough, fatigue, and upper respiratory tract infections, ii) moderate; shortness of breath, severe cough, diarrhea, iii) severe; severe pneumonia, acute lung injury (ALI), and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), sepsis and septic shock (Cascella et al., 2020). Currently, there is no specific antiviral therapy developed against SARS-CoV-2.Based on previous experiences in SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV outbreaks, some treatment strategies have been developed (Cascella et al., 2020;Mehta et al., 2020;. These strategies include antiviral treatments or combinations of these that have been known to be safe for humans and used in previous viral outbreaks,

Antimicrobial and Amyloidogenic Activity of Peptides. Can Antimicrobial Peptides Be Used against SARS-CoV-2?

“…Recently, promising technologies for creating a vaccine against COVID-19 have been described. In these works, it is proposed to use antigenic peptides developed on the basis of peptide epitopes of viral proteins to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection and based on peptide epitopes of T and B lymphocytes to stimulate the human immune response [ 267 ]. High-performance in silico technologies currently allows the development of new approaches to the creation of peptide vaccines.…”

A computational study to disclose potential drugs and vaccine ensemble for COVID-19 conundrum

“…Peptide-based vaccines significantly limit reactogenic and allergenic complications, and triggers stimulation of B cells and T cells or both simultaneously [ 96 ]. There are low batch to batch differences in peptide-based vaccine production and can be easily standardized [ 98 ]. The peptide structure is well known and structure-function can be easily correlated in contrast to a traditional vaccine.…”

“…The peptide structure is well known and structure-function can be easily correlated in contrast to a traditional vaccine. Furthermore, the peptide can be easily formulated to conjugated structures and multi-epitope vaccines [ 98 ]. Despite the many benefits of using peptide vaccines, they possess lower immunogenic ability which can be overcome by fusing adjuvants in peptide vaccine formulations [ 96 ].…”

Various theranostics and immunization strategies based on nanotechnology against Covid-19 pandemic: An interdisciplinary view

“…As a whole, peptide vaccines can efficiently turn on specific immune responses and significantly enhance protective neutralizing antibody expression. Developer organizations recently broadcasted Phase III clinical trial of the specific vaccine is presently continuing in United Kingdom and positive result was noted [ 256 ].…”