Epitope-Based Peptide Vaccine against Bombali Ebolavirus Viral Protein 40: An Immunoinformatics Combined with Molecular Docking Studies

Abstract

BackgroundBombali Ebolavirus is RNA viruses belong to the Filoviridae family. They are causing lethal hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rate. Despite having available molecular knowledge of this virus, no approved vaccine or antiviral drugs have been developed yet for the eradication of Bombali Ebolavirus infections in humans. Objectivethe present study described a multi epitope-based peptide vaccine against Bombali Ebolavirus matrix protein VP40, using several immunoinformatics tools. Materials and MethodsThe six strains of Ebolavirus were retrieved from NCBI and Uniprot databases and submitted to VaxiJen to identify the most antigenic protein among all. Then PSIPRED, SOPMA, QMEAN, and PROCHECK tools were used to check the protein quality. T-cell prediction, population coverage, and molecular docking analysis were achieved to select peptides containing multiple Bombali VP40 epitopes showing interaction with multiple HLA molecules for expected immune response across the world. ResultBombali Ebola (YP_009513276.1) was found to be the most antigenic protein among all. Which it has been used in all required analysis. For T cell three epitopes showed high affinity to MHC class I (YSFDSTTAA, VQLPQYFTF, and MVNVISGPK) and high population coverage against Africa and the world. Furthermore in MHC class II, six promising epitopes that associated with most common MHC class II alleles. ConclusionThe above result conclude that, these peptides capable of provoking T-cell response and being interacted with a wide range of HLA molecules have a strong potential to be a vaccine against Bombali Ebolavirus.