Genome-wide identification of novel vaccine candidates for Plasmodium falciparum malaria using integrative bioinformatics approaches

Abstract

In spite of decades of malaria research and clinical trials, a fully effective and long-lasting preventive vaccine remains elusive. In the present study, 5370 proteins of genome were screened for the presence of signal peptide/anchor and GPI anchor motifs. Out of 45 screened surface-associated proteins, 22 were consensually predicted as antigens and had no orthologs in human and mouse except circumsporozoite protein (PF3D7_0304600). Among 22 proteins, 19 were identified as new antigens. In the next step, a total of 4944 peptides were predicted as CD8+ T cell epitopes from 22 probable antigens. Of these, the highest scoring 262 epitopes from each antigen were taken for optimization study in the malaria-endemic regions which covered a broad human population (~93.95%). The predicted epitope 13ILFYFFLWV21 of antigen 6-cysteine (PF3D7_1346800) was binding to the HLA-A*0201 allele with the highest fraction (26%) of immunogenicity in the target populations of North-East Asia, South-East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, these epitopes are proposed to be favored in vaccine designs against malaria.

Immune-Informatic Analysis and Design of Peptide Vaccine From Multi-epitopes Against Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis

“… 22 Besides these obvious advantages, such as speed and low cost, the success of this approach depends on the accuracy of antigen prediction and many bioinformatics tools are available to facilitate this process. 23 …”

Bioinformatics Analysis of Linear B-cell Viscumin Toxin Epitope With Potential Use in Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Biosensors

“…In fact, this study was conducted to evaluate the complexity of protein chemistry using monomers. A cancer biomarker called quinogen-a plasma protein-for early diagnosis and cancer prediction was synthesized [22].…”

<p>Immunoinformatics and Vaccine Development: An Overview</p>

“…The vaccines are made from short peptide fragments capable of eliciting highly specific immune responses, precision targeting and multiepitope constructs, in the case of varying antigenic peptides, which has been made feasible with the advancements in the field of computational biology. [113][114][115][116] Vaccines for pathogens with immune escape potentials can basically be constructed by using most, if not all, of their immunogenic peptides 116,117 because such vaccines prove to be better than single-epitope and classical vaccines. Multiepitope vaccines enjoy the following advantages over single-epitope and classical vaccines: a) they are an assemblage of several epitopes obtained from distinct protein targets/antigens of an intended infection; b) the multiple T-cell receptors (TCRs) in the vaccine recipient can easily recognize vaccines with multiple HLA epitopes; c); they can be easily adjuvanted to improve their immunogenicity; d) they can activate antibody-mediated and cell-mediated immunological responses because of their overlapping helper T lymphocytes (HTL), CD8+ T-cell and B-cell epitopes; and e) unwanted protein antigens are excluded in such construct thereby reducing the chances of untoward effects and/ or immune responses likely to cause disease(s).…”