Design of an Epitope-Based Vaccine Against MERS-CoV

Background and Objectives: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus called Middle East respiratory syndrome. In the current study, immunoinformatics studies were applied to design an epitope-based vaccine construct against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Materials and Methods: In this study, epitopes base vaccine construct was designed against MERS using immunoinformatics approach. Results: In this approach, the targeted proteins were screened, and probable antigenic, non-allergenic, and good water-soluble epitopes were selected for vaccine construction. In vaccine construction, the selected epitopes were joined by GPGPG linkers, and a linear multi-epitope vaccine was constructed. The vaccine construct underwent a physiochemical property analysis. The 3D structure of the vaccine construct was predicted and subjected to refinement. After the refinement, the 3D model was subjected to a molecular docking analysis, TLRs (TLR-3 and TLR-9) were selected as receptors for vaccine construct, and the molecular docking analysis study determined that the vaccine construct has binding ability with the targeted receptor. Conclusions: The docking analysis also unveils that the vaccine construct can properly activate immune system against the target virus however experimental validation is needed to confirm the in silico findings further.