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Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects the liver and causes chronic infection. Several mutations in the viral genome have been associated with drug resistance development. Currently, there is no approved vaccine against the HCV. The employment of computational biology is the primary and crucial step for va...

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Autores principales: Behmard, Esmaeil, Abdulabbas, Hussein T., Abdalkareem Jasim, Saade, Najafipour, Sohrab, Ghasemian, Abdolmajid, Farjadfar, Akbar, Barzegari, Ebrahim, Kouhpayeh, Amin, Abdolmaleki, Parviz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426923/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36040967
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272582
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author Behmard, Esmaeil
Abdulabbas, Hussein T.
Abdalkareem Jasim, Saade
Najafipour, Sohrab
Ghasemian, Abdolmajid
Farjadfar, Akbar
Barzegari, Ebrahim
Kouhpayeh, Amin
Abdolmaleki, Parviz
author_facet Behmard, Esmaeil
Abdulabbas, Hussein T.
Abdalkareem Jasim, Saade
Najafipour, Sohrab
Ghasemian, Abdolmajid
Farjadfar, Akbar
Barzegari, Ebrahim
Kouhpayeh, Amin
Abdolmaleki, Parviz
author_sort Behmard, Esmaeil
collection PubMed
description Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects the liver and causes chronic infection. Several mutations in the viral genome have been associated with drug resistance development. Currently, there is no approved vaccine against the HCV. The employment of computational biology is the primary and crucial step for vaccine design or antiviral therapy which can substantially reduce the duration and cost of studies. Therefore, in this study, we designed a multi-epitope vaccine using various immunoinformatics tools to elicit the efficient human immune responses against the HCV. Initially, various potential (antigenic, immunogenic, non-toxic and non-allergenic) epitope segments were extracted from viral structural and non-structural protein sequences using multiple screening methods. The selected epitopes were linked to each other properly. Then, toll-like receptors (TLRs) 3 and 4 agonists (50S ribosomal protein L7/L12 and human β-defensin 2, respectively) were added to the N-terminus of the final vaccine sequence to increase its immunogenicity. The 3D structure of the vaccine was modeled. Molecular dynamics simulations studies verified the high stability of final free vaccines and in complex with TLR3 and TLR4. These constructs were also antigenic, non-allergenic, nontoxic and immunogenic. Although the designed vaccine traits were promising as a potential candidate against the HCV infection, experimental studies and clinical trials are required to verify the protective traits and safety of the designed vaccine.
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spelling pubmed-94269232022-08-31 Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach Behmard, Esmaeil Abdulabbas, Hussein T. Abdalkareem Jasim, Saade Najafipour, Sohrab Ghasemian, Abdolmajid Farjadfar, Akbar Barzegari, Ebrahim Kouhpayeh, Amin Abdolmaleki, Parviz PLoS One Research Article Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects the liver and causes chronic infection. Several mutations in the viral genome have been associated with drug resistance development. Currently, there is no approved vaccine against the HCV. The employment of computational biology is the primary and crucial step for vaccine design or antiviral therapy which can substantially reduce the duration and cost of studies. Therefore, in this study, we designed a multi-epitope vaccine using various immunoinformatics tools to elicit the efficient human immune responses against the HCV. Initially, various potential (antigenic, immunogenic, non-toxic and non-allergenic) epitope segments were extracted from viral structural and non-structural protein sequences using multiple screening methods. The selected epitopes were linked to each other properly. Then, toll-like receptors (TLRs) 3 and 4 agonists (50S ribosomal protein L7/L12 and human β-defensin 2, respectively) were added to the N-terminus of the final vaccine sequence to increase its immunogenicity. The 3D structure of the vaccine was modeled. Molecular dynamics simulations studies verified the high stability of final free vaccines and in complex with TLR3 and TLR4. These constructs were also antigenic, non-allergenic, nontoxic and immunogenic. Although the designed vaccine traits were promising as a potential candidate against the HCV infection, experimental studies and clinical trials are required to verify the protective traits and safety of the designed vaccine. Public Library of Science 2022-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9426923/ /pubmed/36040967 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272582 Text en © 2022 Behmard et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Behmard, Esmaeil
Abdulabbas, Hussein T.
Abdalkareem Jasim, Saade
Najafipour, Sohrab
Ghasemian, Abdolmajid
Farjadfar, Akbar
Barzegari, Ebrahim
Kouhpayeh, Amin
Abdolmaleki, Parviz
Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach
title Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach
title_full Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach
title_fullStr Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach
title_full_unstemmed Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach
title_short Design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis C virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: An immunoinformatics approach
title_sort design of a novel multi-epitope vaccine candidate against hepatitis c virus using structural and nonstructural proteins: an immunoinformatics approach
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426923/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36040967
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272582
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