A computational immune-informatics approach to design multi-epitope vaccine against Guanarito virus targeting nucleoprotein and nucleo-capsid proteins

Abstract

The human Guanarito virus (GTOV), belongs to the order Bunyavirales and family Arenaviradae, was found in the Portuguese state of Portugal’s Guanarito municipality. Due to its seasonal occurrence, Venezuelan hemorrhagic fever was caused by severe hemorrhagic febrile sickness outbreak happened in 1989. The lack of antiviral medications or vaccines to prevent the GTOV infection means that the treatment for GTOV infection is currently uncertain; thus, the development of an efficacious vaccine is imperative. Within this research, immune-informatics approaches were utilized to develop an effective vaccine candidate to combat with GTOV infections. We retrieve the nucleo and nucleo-capsid proteins of the GTOV from the National Center for Biotechnology Information database and forecast HTL, B-cell, and CTL epitopes against these proteins using different tools. Non-allergenic and antigenic epitopes were coupled with suitable linker, like KK, GPGPG, and AAY. Furthermore, an adjuvant HMAN Beta-defensin was added to the C-terminal end of the vaccine via EAAAK linker. Using the SoluProt tool, the vaccine solubility value of 0.7951 was produced. Additionally, the vaccine was projected to have an antigenicity score of 0.929968, an immunogenicity score of -0.22436, and a non-toxic and nom-allergenic reaction. It was determined that the vaccine’s ERRAT value was 97.368%, 89.0% of residues were in the most favored region, 9.6 % were in the additional allowed zone, and 0.4% were in the generously allowed region, according to the Ramachandran plot. While the vaccine’s Z-score was calculated to be -4.8. Experimental validation is required to establish the efficacy of this vaccine, with further testing needed to demonstrate its safety and immunogenicity for treating GTOV related disorders. Overall, this study highlights the potential of computational vaccine design as a promising approach to combat GTOV infections, paving the way for future experimental validation and development of an effective therapeutic strategy