Construction of Epitope-Based Peptide Vaccine Against SARS-CoV-2: Immunoinformatics Study

Abstract

Recently, a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) appeared which is conscientious for the current outbreak in China and rapidly spread worldwide. Unluckily, there is no approved vaccine found against SARS-CoV-2. Therefore, there is an urgent need for designing a suitable peptide vaccine constituent against the SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we characterized the spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 to obtain immunogenic epitopes. In addition, we used 58 SARS-CoV-2 isolates were retrieved from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), then aligned to obtain the conserved region of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein. The interaction between the conserved region with ACE2 receptor, a SARS-CoV-2 receptor on the host cell, has been evaluated through molecular docking approach. The B-cell epitope was identified using the immune epitope database (IEDB) web server. Interestingly, we recommend Pep_4 ADHQPQTFVNTELH as a epitope-based peptide vaccine candidate to deal with the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Pep_4 has a high level of immunogenicity and does not trigger autoimmune mechanisms. Pep_4 is capable of forming BCR/Fab molecular complexes with the lowest binding energy for activation of transduction signal the direct B-cell immune response. However, further study is suggested for confirmation (in vitro and in vivo).