Abstract
In recent years, epitope-based peptides have constituted a prominent and prospective class in pharmacology; especially in mounting specific immune responses against pathogenic agents. Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) has been a leading cause of mortality in infants and children aged under 5 years. To date, there is a dearth of vaccines or small molecules targeting RSV. The identification of RSV B-cell epitopes is a preliminary step in developing an epitope-based vaccine design. The prediction for B-cell epitopes using an in-silico approach will enhance our understanding of etiopathogenesis and aid in the creation of effective vaccines that target B-cell response. In our study, three distinct prediction tools- ABCpred, Bepipred, and BCpred were used to assess the RSV proteomes, leading to the prediction of 3,314 B-cell epitopes, from which 128 were revealed to be overlapping epitopes. The physicochemical properties of 128 overlapping epitopes were studied subsequently. A total of 35/128 of them were anticipated to be antigenic, non-allergenic, non-toxic, and non-homologous peptides. According to structural analysis utilizing the Ellipro database, 133 linear epitopes and 53 discontinuous epitopes were predicted. Finally, 4 potent epitopes show a high binding score of 0.819 to 0.838, which will improve and strengthen the development of effective RSV vaccines.
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All data supporting this study is provided as supplementary information accompanying this paper.
Abbreviations
- RSV:
-
Human respiratory syncytial virus
- BLAST:
-
Basic Local Alignment Search Tool
- ViPR:
-
Database, Virus Pathogen Database and Analysis Resource
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Department of Nanoscience and Technology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu India, for providing vital computational services and consistent command throughout the research work.
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Paramasivam Premasudha: Supervision, Investigation, Methodology, Data curation, Review & Editing. Manikandan Mohan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Data curation. Yogesh B. Narkhede: Validation, Data curation, Review & Editing. Gayathri Anandhan: Methodology, Analysis, Data curation, Writing.
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Anandhan, G., Narkhede, Y.B., Mohan, M. et al. In silico Approach for B Cell Epitopes Prediction of Respiratory Syncytial Virus. Int J Pept Res Ther 29, 75 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-023-10547-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-023-10547-w