CHAPTER ONE 1 1.0 Introduction 2.6 Population structure and genetic diversity of Eimeria tenella 2.7 Anticoccidial vaccine candidates associated with Eimeria tenella 2.8 Antigenic diversity of Eimeria tenella AMA1 and its relevance to novel vaccine development v 2.9 Novel vaccine design through immunoinformatics 2.10 Conclusion 2.11 References CHAPTER THREE: Genetic diversity of Eimeria tenella apical membrane antigen 1 (AMA 1) from chickens in Mpumalanga province, South Africa 45 3.2.6 Phylogenetic tree and Haplotype network analysis 3.3 Discussion 3.4 Conclusion vi 3.5 References CHAPTER FOUR: In silico design of multiepitope-based vaccine of Eimeria tenella Apical membrane Antigen 1 against chicken coccidiosis Abstract 4.0 Introduction 4.1 Materials and Methods 4.1.1 Retrieval of targeted protein sequences, antigenicity prediction and transmembrane helix 4.1.2 Prediction of CD8+ epitopes and their major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I binding allele 4.1.3 Prediction of CD4+ epitopes and their major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II binding allele 4.1.4 Conservancy and allergenicity prediction of the CD8 and CD4 T epitope sequences 4.1.5 Analysis of IFN-γ and IL-4 inducer property of the CD4+ T-cell epitopes and Conservancy 4.1.6 Linear B-cell epitope prediction 4.1.7 Construction of a Multiple-epitope vaccine (MEV) 4.1.8 Molecular Docking 4.1.9 Validation of refined 3D structure 4.2 Results 4.2.1 Selection of sequences with a capacity to induce an immune response 4.2.2 CD8 + T-cell epitopes prediction and evaluation of their Immunogenicity 4.2.3 Prediction and selection of CD4 + T-cell epitope 4.2.4 Molecular docking of CD8 + and CD4 + T-cell epitopes with their respective major histocompatibility complex (MHC) 4.2.5 Linear B-cell epitope prediction 4.2.6 Multi-epitope vaccine design 4.2.7 Validation of a designed vaccine 3D structure and Molecular docking of multiepitope vaccine with Toll-like receptor (TLR4) 4.3 Discussion 4.4 Conclusion a Z-score Figure 4: Molecular docking of a constructed multiepitope vaccine with TLR-4 receptor xi