Immunoinformatic design and evaluation of a multi-epitope mRNA vaccine against food-born bacterial strains including Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter jejuni
Immunoinformatic design and evaluation of a multi-epitope mRNA vaccine against food-born bacterial strains including Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter jejuni
Faezeh Akbari,1Tahereh Sadeghian-Rizi,2,*Mokhtar Nosrati,3
1. Department of Genetics, Faculty of Biological Sciences and Technology, Shahid Ashrafi Esfahani University, Isfahan, Iran 2. Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Biological Sciences and Technology, Shahid Ashrafi Esfahani University, Isfahan, Iran 3. Zistfile bioinformatics center
Introduction: Food poisoning, which is known as a food-borne disease, refers to a wide range of diseases caused by the consumption of contaminated food. Pathogenic agents include bacteria, viruses, parasites, and protozoa, and bacteria play a major role in causing food poisoning. Microorganisms can be transmitted to humans through direct contamination of food or indirectly by workers and the environment, and it is also possible to transmit diseases from animals to humans and from person to person. The aim of the research is to design a multi-epitope mRNA vaccine against food-born bacterial strains including Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter jejuni, which will be more effective than existing vaccines.
Methods: In this study, the target antigens were identified using the VFDB server, and then their protein sequences were analyzed with the IEDB and TepiTool servers to identify B T cell epitopes. After screening, the best epitopes were selected to design the core structure of the vaccine. The 3D structure of the vaccine was generated with the Swiss Model server and improved with The ReFOLD. Also, the three-dimensional structure of spatial B epitopes was obtained with Ellipro, and the physicochemical properties were analyzed with ProtParam and PepCalc. Next, the efficacy of the vaccine was evaluated with the HDock server and its activity in the immune system was interpreted with C-IMMSIM. Finally, the vaccine sequence was converted to DNA and then to mRNA, and the two-dimensional structure of mRNA was created with UTRdb.
Results: According to the results of bioinformatics analysis, the designed vaccine is high immunogenic and non-allergenic antigen that can induce immune responses against Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes, and Campylobacter jejuni which could be promising for food poisoning.
Conclusion: The designed vaccine can be used as a multi-epitope mRNA vaccine against food-born bacterial strains, although experimental studies are necessary.