Background. Nipah belongs to the genus Henipavirus and the Paramyxoviridae family. It is an endemic most commonly found at South Asia and has first emerged in Malaysia in 1998. Bats are found to be the main reservoir for this virus, causing disease in both humans and animals. The last outbreak has occurred in May 2018 in Kerala. It is characterized by high pathogenicity and fatality rates which varies from 40% to 70% depending on the severity of the disease and on the availability of adequate healthcare facilities. Currently, there are no antiviral drugs available for NiV disease and the treatment is just supportive. Clinical presentations for this virus range from asymptomatic infection to fatal encephalitis. Objective. This study is aimed at predicting an effective epitope-based vaccine against glycoprotein G of Nipah henipavirus, using immunoinformatics approaches. Methods and Materials. Glycoprotein G of the Nipah virus sequence was retrieved from NCBI. Different prediction tools were used to analyze the epitopes, namely, BepiPred-2.0: Sequential B Cell Epitope Predictor for B cell and T cell MHC classes II and I. Then, the proposed peptides were docked using Autodock 4.0 software program. Results and Conclusions. The two peptides TVYHCSAVY and FLIDRINWI have showed a very strong binding affinity to MHC class I and MHC class II alleles. Furthermore, considering the conservancy, the affinity, and the population coverage, the peptide FLIDRINWIT is highly suitable to be utilized to formulate a new vaccine against glycoprotein G of Nipah henipavirus. An in vivo study for the proposed peptides is also highly recommended.

AbstractBackgroundNipah virus (NiV) is a member of the genus Henipavirus of the family Paramyxoviridae, characterized by high pathogenicity and endemic in South Asia, first emerged in Malaysia in 1998. The case-fatality varies from 40% to 70% depending on the severity of the disease and on the availability of adequate healthcare facilities. At present no antiviral drugs are available for NiV disease and the treatment is just supportive. Clinical presentation ranges from asymptomatic infection to fatal encephalitis. Bats are the main reservoir for this virus, which can cause disease in humans and animals. The last investigated NiV outbreak has occurred in May 2018 in Kerala.ObjectiveThis study aims to predict effective epitope-based vaccine against glycoprotein G of Nipah henipavirus using immunoinformatics approaches.Methods and MaterialsGlycoprotein G of Nipah henipavirus sequence was retrieved from NCBI. Different prediction tools were used to analyze the nominee’s epitopes in BepiPred-2.0: Sequential B-Cell Epitope Predictor for B-cell, T-cell MHC class II & I. Then the proposed peptides were docked using Autodock 4.0 software program.Results and ConclusionsPeptide TVYHCSAVY shows a very strong binding affinity to MHC I alleles while FLIDRINWI shows a very strong binding affinity to MHC II and MHC I alleles. This indicates a strong potential to formulate a new vaccine, especially with the peptide FLIDRINWI that is likely to be the first proposed epitope-based vaccine against glycoprotein G of Nipah henipavirus. This study recommends an in-vivo assessment for the most promising peptides especially FLIDRINWI.

Background. Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is the most common autoinflammatory disease (AID) affecting mainly the ethnic groups originating from Mediterranean basin. We aimed to identify the pathogenic SNPs in MEFV by computational analysis software. Methods. We carried out in silico prediction of structural effect of each SNP using different bioinformatics tools to predict substitution influence on protein structure and function. Result. 23 novel mutations out of 857 nsSNPs are found to have deleterious effect on the MEFV structure and function. Conclusion. This is the first in silico analysis of MEFV gene to prioritize SNPs for further genetic mapping studies. After using multiple bioinformatics tools to compare and rely on the results predicted, we found 23 novel mutations that may cause FMF disease and it could be used as diagnostic markers for Mediterranean basin populations.