An immunoinformatics approach to design a multi-epitopevaccine against Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Background and Aim : Neisseria gonorrhoeae is one of the most common bacterial sexuallytransmitted diseases (STDs) that cause inflammation of the genitourinary tract. The emergence ofN. gonorrheae strains resistant to almost all classes of antibiotics available for treatment and thelack of an effective gonococcal vaccine are sufficient reasons for the necessity of urgent action forprevention and control. The aim of present study, an in silico approach was adopted to construct amulti-epitope vaccine from immunogenic proteins of N. gonorrhoeae selected to elicit a cellularimmune response as well as a humoral immune response.Methods : Five amino acid sequences of N, gonorrhoeae were retrieved from the GenBankdatabase. Three ABCpred, BCPREDS and LBtope online servers were considered for B cellsprediction and IEDB server for T cells (CD۴+ and CD۸+) prediction. All sequences wereperformed for validation, allergenicity, toxicity and physicochemical analysis using web servers.Results : A total of ۶ sequences with different lengths for linear B cell epitopes, ۶ and ۷ sequenceswere considered as epitopes of CD۴+ T cells and CD۸+ cells, respectively. The secondary andthree-dimensional (۳D) structure of the final vaccine was predicted. In addition, the complexbetween the final vaccine and immune receptors (TLR-۴) was evaluated by molecular docking. Toconfirm the expression of the designed vaccine, the vaccine mRNA was amplified with the helpof Java codon compatibility tool and the secondary structure was generated from Mfold. Finally,codon optimization based on Escherichia coli K۱۲ resulted in optimal GC content and higher CAIvalue followed by incorporating it into the cloning vector pET۲۸þ(a).Conclusion : Therefore, it can be further corroborated using in vitro and in vivo assays to fulfilthe global need for a more efficacious anti-Neisseria vaccine.

کلیدواژه ها:

Neisseria gonorrhoeae ، immunoinformatic ، vaccine