A Brief Review of Computer-Assisted Approaches to Rational Design of Peptide Vaccines

Abstract

The growing incidences of new viral diseases and increasingly frequent viral epidemics have strained therapeutic and preventive measures; the high mutability of viral genes puts additional strains on developmental efforts. Given the high cost and time requirements for new drugs development, vaccines remain as a viable alternative, but there too traditional techniques of live-attenuated or inactivated vaccines have the danger of allergenic reactions and others. Peptide vaccines have, over the last several years, begun to be looked on as more appropriate alternatives, which are economically affordable, require less time for development and hold the promise of multi-valent dosages. The developments in bioinformatics, proteomics, immunogenomics, structural biology and other sciences have spurred the growth of vaccinomics where computer assisted approaches serve to identify suitable peptide targets for eventual development of vaccines. In this mini-review we give a brief overview of some of the recent trends in computer assisted vaccine development with emphasis on the primary selection procedures of probable peptide candidates for vaccine development.

Use of Mathematical Chemodescriptors and Biodescriptors for New Drug Discovery, Environmental Protection, and Surveillance of Emerging Global Pathogens

“…Recently ZIkV has come into worldwide prominence because this virus, spread mainly by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, causes microcephaly in children whose mothers were exposed to the virus while they were pregnant. Our team has used mathematical sequence descriptors for the characterization of the genome [12] of ZIkV isolated from the african and asian region as well as for the computational prediction of potential peptide vaccines [13] which could be effective against ZIkV. In the genomics approach [12], invariants of graphs of RNa sequences of the ZIkV strains were used to compare sequences.…”

“…a new sequence, if that is different from the ones already known, can be visualized and detected from the plot of the sequences against the mathematical descriptors. In the vaccinomics area [13], conserved gene sequences are detected using calculated sequence descriptors and then those sequences are used as the starting point for the computational design of peptide vaccines with high potential for success. For further information on this line of research, please see [14,15].…”

<strong>A brief account of the search for peptide vaccines </strong>

“…An alternative approach is to elicit the body's own immunological response through targeted peptide vaccines. This method (Fig.1) is comparatively fast, less costly and more efficient in production of the vaccines [5]. As of November 2017, there were over 500 peptide vaccines in various phase trials listed in NIH, USA, ClinicalTrials.gov website testifying to the intense search for a breakthrough in this line of research.…”

Immunoinformatics: Implications on Reverse Vaccinology

“…Given the high cost and time requirements for new drugs development, vaccines remain as a viable alternative, but there too traditional techniques of live-attenuated or inactivated vaccines have the danger of allergenic reactions and others [3]. The developments in bioinformatics, proteomics, immunogenomics, structural biology and other sciences have spurred the growth of vaccinomics where computer assisted approaches serve to identify suitable peptide targets for eventual development of vaccines.…”

“…These approaches reducing the workload of experimentalists with higher probability of success. Peptide vaccines have, over the last several years, begun to be looked on as more appropriate alternatives, which are economically affordable, require less time for development and hold the promise for reverse vaccinology 3 .…”