Immunoinformatics Approach to Design a Novel Epitope-Based Oral Vaccine AgainstHelicobacter pylori

Abstract

Helicobacter pylori is an infectious agent that colonizes the gastric mucosa of half of the population worldwide. This bacterium has been recognized as belonging to group 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization for the role in development of gastritis, peptic ulcers, and cancer. Due to the increase in resistance to antibiotics used in the anti-H. pylori therapy, the development of an effective vaccine is an alternative of great interest, which remains a challenge. Therefore, a rational, strategic, and efficient vaccine design against H. pylori is necessary where the use of the most current bioinformatics tools could help achieve it. In this study, immunoinformatics approach was used to design a novel multiepitope oral vaccine against H. pylori. Our multiepitope vaccine is composed of cholera toxin subunit B (CTB) that is used as a mucosal adjuvant to enhance vaccine immunogenicity for oral immunization. CTB fused to 11 epitopes predicted of pathogenic (UreB170–189, VacA459–478, CagA1103–1122, GGT106–126, NapA30–44, and OipA211–230) and colonization (HpaA33–52, FlaA487–506, FecA437–456, BabA129–149, and SabA540–559) proteins from H. pylori. CKS9 peptide (CKSTHPLSC) targets epithelial microfold cells to enhance vaccine uptake from the gut barrier. All sequences were joined to each other by proper linkers. The vaccine was modeled and validated to achieve a high-quality three-dimensional structure. The vaccine design was evaluated as nonallergenic, antigenic, soluble, and with an appropriate molecular weight and isoelectric point. Our results suggest that our newly designed vaccine could serve as a promising anti-H. pylori vaccine candidate.

<p>Immunoinformatics and Vaccine Development: An Overview</p>

“…Serendipitous discoveries in immunology coupled with knowledge of bioinformatics tools for epitope predictions have resulted in the emergence of new pattern of vaccine design. 5,6 The art and science of efficient and comprehensive information extraction and analysis of data deposited in relevant databases is now increasingly essential in researches related to immunology. 7 Even with this capacity (efficient information extraction), some challenges in the application of bioinformatics in immunology include structure and/or function analysis and immune process analyses as concern the immune interaction specificity.…”

“…8 Also, computational immunological methods drastically reduce both time and labor needs in epitopes screening. 5,9 With computational immunology techniques, it is possible to discover vaccine candidate epitopes simply by scanning the protein sequences in a pathogen of interest. 5 Many of these proteins are yet to be isolated or at least cloned.…”

“…5,9 With computational immunology techniques, it is possible to discover vaccine candidate epitopes simply by scanning the protein sequences in a pathogen of interest. 5 Many of these proteins are yet to be isolated or at least cloned. Being pathogens specific and unique, they present ready candidates in vaccine construct.…”

In silicoapproach for designing of a multi-epitope based vaccine against novel Coronavirus (SARS-COV-2)

“…In order to control the rapidly spreading SARS-COV-2 infection, there is an urgent need to design a suitable vaccine candidate that can prevent large scale mortalities in the future. Multi-epitope based vaccines have several advantages in terms of safety, opportunity to rationally design the construct for increased efficiency, efficacy, antigenicity, and immunogenicity (Urrutia-Baca et al ., 2019). The developmental process includes identification of virulence protein and selection of peptide segments, which can generate both cellular and humoral immune responses.…”

Engineering a Multi Epitope Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2 By Exploiting Its Non Structural and Structural Proteins

“…A successful vaccine candidate, demands attributes such as high immunogenicity, antigenicity and acceptable physicochemical properties along with no allergenicity and toxicity. The designing of a vaccine using the MESV approach could exactly address these issues 13 . To date numerous vaccines have been entrenched using in silico methods against various viruses such as the Hepatitis C virus, Human immunode ciency virus-1, and many more 14,15 .…”