Bioinformatics Design of a DBV-Specific Multi-Epitope Vaccine

¹ School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
² Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanjing, China

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Abstract

Objective This study aims to design and optimize a multi-epitope vaccine against Dabie bandavirus (DBV) using bioinformatics approaches, and to systematically evaluate its structural stability, antigenicity, and immunogenicity, thereby providing a theoretical basis for novel vaccine development. Methods Helper T lymphocyte, cytotoxic T lymphocyte, and B-cell epitopes were identified and filtered according to their antigenicity, allergenicity and toxicity. The selected epitopes were then assembled with appropriate linkers and fused with the adjuvant β-defensin II to generate a vaccine candidate. Its physicochemical properties and structural characteristics were examined through secondary and tertiary structure prediction and subsequent refinement. To evaluate how the vaccine associates with immune receptors, molecular docking experiments were conducted. HLA-A*02:01, HLA-DRB1*01:01, TLR2, and TLR4 was docked to the vaccine, then we use molecular dynamics simulations to assess the stability of the protein complex. Population coverage and immune response profiles were further analyzed using in silico methods. Results The putative epitopes all exhibited strong antigenicity and posed no potential harm to humans. All selected epitopes and the adjuvant were constructed into the final vaccine, and further evaluation was conducted by calculating its physicochemical properties. Taken together, these findings indicate that the multi-epitope vaccine was structurally stable. Overall,given its design, this vaccine emerges as a highly promising candidate for subsequent experimental development.