Structural and Epitope Analysis (T- and B-Cell Epitopes) of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Glycoproteins: An in silico Approach

Abstract

Chronic infection with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) poses a major risk for liver disease like cirrhosis, liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma. In terms of percentage, the prevalence of HCV in India was found to be low to moderate (1-1.5%), but in terms of sheer numbers, India has a significant number of global HCV patients. Presently, HCV can be treated with direct acting-antibody drugs but there is no prophylactic or therapeutic vaccine available against it. In HCV infection, T- and B-cell immunity is important for clearing the virus. In the present study immunoinformatics was used to identify potent vaccine target for HCV vaccine development. Sequence of HCV was retrieved from NCBI and their structural analysis was done by using Protpram, PSIPRED, iTASSER and PDBsum servers. T-cell and B-cell epitopes were predicted by Immune Epitope Database and ACBPRED servers. On epitope prediction, 25 and 55 potent MHC-I epitopes and 7 and 13 potent B-cell epitopes were predicted for E1 and E2 protein respectively. Their antigenicity score was also calculated. The most potent MHC-I epitopes were MMMNWSPAV and MAWDMMMNW for HLA-A*02:01 and HLA-B*53:01 and most potent B-cell epitope was TGHRMAWDMMMNWSPA for E1 protein. For E2, four MHC-I epitopes having the lowest binding energy and most potent B-cell epitope was DRPYCWHYAPRPCDTI. In the present study, most potent epitopes for HCV was determined on the basis of their antigenicity along with 3D modeling and docking. Identified B- and T-cell epitopes can be used for the development of potent vaccine against most prevalent HCV type in India to limit its infection.