Insight into SNPs and epitopes of E protein of newly emerged genotype-I isolates of JEV from Midnapur, West Bengal, India

BACKGROUND: Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that causes Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in humans. Genotype-I (as co-circulating cases with Genotype-III) was isolated in 2010 (JEV28, JEV21) and then in 2011 (JEV45) from Midnapur district, West Bengal (WB) for the first time from clinical patients who were previously been vaccinated with live attenuated SA14-14-2 strain. We apply bioinformatics and immunoinformatics on sequence and structure of E protein for analysis of crucial substitutions that might cause the genotypic transition, affecting protein-function and altering specificity of epitopes. RESULTS: Although frequency of substitutions in E glycoprotein of JEV28, JEV21 and JEV45 isolates vary, its homologous patterns remain exactly similar as earlier Japan isolate (Ishikawa). Sequence and 3D model-structure based analyses of E protein show that only four of all substitutions are critical for genotype-I specific effect of which N103K is common among all isolates indicating its role in the transition of genotype-III to genotype-I. Predicted B-cell and T-cell epitopes are seen to harbor these critical substitutions that affect overall conformational stability of the protein. These epitopes were subjected to conservation analyses using a large set of the protein from Asian continent. CONCLUSIONS: The study identifies crucial substitutions that contribute to the emergence of genotype-I. Predicted epitopes harboring these substitutions may alter specificity which might be the reason of reported failure of vaccine. Conservation analysis of these epitopes would be useful for design of genotype-I specific vaccine. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12865-017-0197-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.