Development of a candidate multi-epitope vaccine against Sphingobacterium spiritivorum : Reverse vaccinology and immunoinformatics approach

OBJECTIVES: To develop a candidate vaccine aginst the Sphingobacterium spiritivorum. METHODS: Since there is currently no vaccine against this pathogen, we employed in-silico methods to extensively explore the outer membrane toxin-producing proteins found specifically in S. spiritivorum to forecast a multi-epitope chimeric vaccine design. This computational study was conducted in Saudi Arabia in 2022 (study design: computational; ethical approval not applicable). RESULTS: TThe vaccine peptide comprises multiple linear and conformational B-cell epitopes, which have the potential to elicit humoral immunity. Projected B-cell- derived T-cell epitopes for outer membrane proteins are present in the produced protein. The docking and molecular dynamic simulation results indicating that the chimeric vaccine had adequate binding stability with TLR-4. Following the immunological simulation, significant levels of immune cell expression were observed as immunoglobulin (Ig) M and IgG, IgM, IgM1, and IgM2, and independently IgG1 and IgG2. CONCLUSION: The developed vaccine candidate is suitable for further testing and can assist experimental vaccinologists in developing an effective vaccine against S. spiritivorum.