In silico approaches for Mycoplasma pneumoniae multi-epitope vaccine construction
Thaís Cristina Vilela Rodrigues, Sandeep Tiwari, Vasco Ariston de Carvalho Azevedo, Rodrigo Bentes Kato, Stephane Fraga de Oliveira Tosta and Siomar de Castro Soares
Pneumonia is a serious health problem with global effects, being the death cause of over one million people annually. Among the main microorganisms responsible by pneumonia, Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the most common, with a significant increase in the last years. The vaccines are fundamental in diseases prevention besides to considerably avoid the need of health services and funding resources. In this way, the proposal of the present study is to construct through immunoinformatic tools, a multi-epitope vaccine against M. pneumoniae. Multi-epitope vaccines are constituted by epitopes properly selected to induce targeted immune responses and avoid adverse reactions. First the core proteins were previously determined through reverse vaccinology, then the search for MHCI, MHCII and B epitopes were performed as well as the check for overlapping epitopes, capable to induce both humoral and cellular responses. Those epitopes were filtered according to their immunogenicity, population coverage, among others. The final epitopes were joined with heat-labile enterotoxin from Escherichia coli as adjuvant and the structure of the vaccine was predicted. The vaccine was considered physically stable, non-toxic, non-allergen, not significantly similar to human proteome and with appropriate antigenic and immunogenic properties. The molecular docking of the vaccine with the Toll-Like Receptor 2 was performed as well as the dynamic simulation to ensure the affinity and stability between this complex. In silico cloning was tested in an expression vector with positive results. In addition, the immune simulation for vaccine efficacy will be test. Through immunoinformatic approaches we constructed an effective multi-epitope vaccine candidate, that with further tests could contribute to prevention of pneumonia in a massive scale. Besides that, the study assists to better understanding of the immune mechanisms regarding M. pneumoniae infections and its interaction with the host.
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