Immunoinformatic Analysis of T- and B-Cell Epitopes for SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Design.

Dongliang Wang,Neal D Epstein,Yi Yang,Wanting Yu,Naidong Wang,Jinhui Mai,Wenfeng Zhou,Yang Zhan

doi:10.3390/vaccines8030355

Abstract

Currently, there is limited knowledge about the immunological profiles of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We used computer-based immunoinformatic analysis and the newly resolved 3-dimensional (3D) structures of the SARS-CoV-2 S trimeric protein, together with analyses of the immunogenic profiles of SARS-CoV, to anticipate potential B-cell and T-cell epitopes of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein for vaccine design, particularly for peptide-driven vaccine design and serological diagnosis. Nine conserved linear B-cell epitopes and multiple discontinuous B-cell epitopes composed of 69 residues on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 trimeric S protein were predicted to be highly antigenic. We found that the SARS-CoV-2 S protein has a different antigenic profile than that of the SARS-CoV S protein due to the variations in their primary and 3D structures. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 may exploit an immune evasion mechanism through two point mutations in the critical and conserved linear neutralization epitope (overlap with fusion peptide) around a sparsely glycosylated area. These mutations lead to a significant decrease in the antigenicity of this epitope in the SARS-CoV-2 S protein. In addition, 62 T-cell epitopes in the SARS-CoV-2 S protein were predicted in our study. The structure-based immunoinformatic analysis for the SARS-CoV-2 S protein in this study may improve vaccine design, diagnosis, and immunotherapy against the pandemic of COVID-19.

Highlights

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a novel coronavirus named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1]
17 potential linear B-cell epitopes were predicted by the BepiPred 2.0 program (Table S1, Supplementary Materials), and nine linear B-cell epitopes were chosen for further analysis after their antigenicity was evaluated via the VaxiJen v2.0 program, based on the scores (Table 1)
We reviewed seven dominant linear B-cell epitopes of the SARS-CoV S proteins based on previous experimental tests and response frequency

Summary

Introduction

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by a novel coronavirus named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) [1]. By 16 June 2020, SARS-CoV-2 has been reported in 216 nations and has resulted in 7,941,791 confirmed cases Coronavirus (CoV) belongs to the family of Coronaviridae, and it is an enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus. Both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV fit into the subgenus of Sarbecovirus within the genus of Betacoronavirus (Beta-CoV), based on phylogenetic tree analysis [1,2,3]. The S protein is composed of an ectodomain, Vaccines 2020, 8, 355; doi:10.3390/vaccines8030355 www.mdpi.com/journal/vaccines contains two heptad repeat domains (HR1 and HR2) that play a critical role in SARS-CoV membrane fusion with target cells

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