A Multi-epitope Peptide Vaccine Design Against Neisseria Gonorrhoeae: An In Silico Approach Jahanbin et al.

Abstract

introduction: One of the most common sexually transmitted diseases is gonorrhea. The World Health Organization has identified gonorrhea as a major public health problem in the world and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported gonorrhea as the second most important bacterial infection in the United States. The increasing antibiotic resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae strains to conventional antibiotics has necessitated efforts to identify alternative strategies.

Methods: The amino acid sequences of five selected proteins were extracted from NCBI protein database. The appropriate epitopes were extracted by NetCTL, IEDB, and ABCpred for T and B cells. These epitopes were joined by suitable linkers, and the amino acid sequence of 50S ribosomal protein L7/L12 was added as an adjuvant. AlgPred and ANTIGENpro were used to evaluate the antigenicity and allergenicity. EXPASY was used for physicochemical properties evaluation. The secondary and third structures were predicted by PSIPRED, Phyre2, and Raptor X. ClusPro was used for the molecular docking process and GROMACS used for molecular dynamics simulations.

Results: The designed vaccine had high antigenicity, no allergenicity, good half-life, suitable epitopes for B and T cells, appropriate physicochemical properties, and high stability. The adjuvant sequence on the vaccine had high binding strength for TLR-4, and the vaccine-TLR-4 complex had satisfactory results in molecular dynamics simulation.

Conclusion: Given to the good immunogenicity of the designed vaccine and its high binding score for TLR-4, and its satisfactory stability, it can be used for further evaluation in the laboratory.