Immunoinformatics design of Bivalent Vaccine targeting S1-NTD and HA2 to simultaneously protect against SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza infections

Abstract

Introduction: Two of the most challenging viruses for vaccine development are SARS-COV-2 causing the current COVID-19 pandemic and influenza virus (H1N1) which spread annually causing seasonal epidemics or increase the pandemic risk. In this study, we analyzed the immonodominant epitope regions in Fusion peptides consisting of the Spike_S1_ N-terminal domain from SARS-COV-2 in-frame to hemagglutinin H2 (HA2) gene from Influenza A virus (H1N1) and also Human IFNɣ gene by two (G4S)3 linker. Method: The comprehensive analysis based on Immunoinformatic has been conducted on prediction servers to predict T and B cell epitopes. In silico cloning and expression in pET-28(+) expression vector and vaccine optimization were assessed. The overall model quality were accessed and the docking or binding affinity of designed vaccine to the Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) were analyzed. The efficiency of the constructed vaccine confirmed by appropriate expression of designed vaccine candidate tested by in silico cloning in pET–28(+) vector and codon optimization might increase the production of vaccine candidate into Escherichia coli strain k12.Result and discussion: In conclusion, we suggest that this fusion peptide would be an attractive design strategy toward developing bivalent vaccine against both COVID-19 and Influenza as promising vaccine candidate without need to reformulation or vaccination each year.