Targeting Yezo Virus Structural Proteins for Multi-Epitope Vaccine Design Using Immunoinformatics Approach

作者：Sudais Rahman, Chien-Chun Chiou, Mashal M. Almutairi, Amar Ajmal, Sidra Batool, Bushra Javed, Tetsuya Tanaka, Chien‐Chin Chen, Abdulaziz Alouffi, Abid Ali · 发表于：Viruses · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.3390/v16091408 · 被引用次数：12 · 研究领域：vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches、Bacteriophages and microbial interactions、Plant Virus Research Studies

tick, has been recently discovered and poses significant threats to human health. The YEZV is considered endemic in Japan and China. Clinical symptoms associated with this virus include thrombocytopenia, fatigue, headache, leukopenia, fever, depression, and neurological complications ranging from mild febrile illness to severe outcomes like meningitis and encephalitis. At present, there is no treatment or vaccine readily accessible for this pathogenic virus. Therefore, this research employed an immunoinformatics approach to pinpoint potential vaccine targets within the YEZV through an extensive examination of its structural proteins. Three structural proteins were chosen using specific criteria to pinpoint T-cell and B-cell epitopes, which were subsequently validated through interferon-gamma induction. Six overlapping epitopes for cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL), helper T-lymphocytes (HTL), and linear B-lymphocytes (LBL) were selected to construct a multi-epitope vaccine, achieving a 92.29% coverage of the global population. These epitopes were then fused with the 50S ribosomal protein L7/L12 adjuvant to improve protection against international strains. The three-dimensional structure of the designed vaccine construct underwent an extensive evaluation through structural analysis. Following molecular docking studies, the YEZV vaccine construct emerged as a candidate for further investigation, showing the lowest binding energy (-78.7 kcal/mol) along with favorable physiochemical ...