Taiwo Ooreoluwa Ojo

Conference 2023 Live Talk

Talk title

Exploring nuclear, viral capsid, and early antigen proteins: An immunoinformatic approach to designing an Epstein Barr Virus Type 1 and 2 vaccine

Authors and Affiliations

Taiwo Ooreoluwa Ojo1,2, Oluwabamise Emmanuel Elegbeleye1,2, Olawale Quadri Bolaji2, Moyosoluwa Precious Oyewole1,4, Abdeen Tunde Ogunlana5, Taiwo Temitope Ogunjobi2, Elijah Kolawole Oladipo1,3*, Temitope Isaac Adelusi2,*

1. Genomics unit, Helix Biogen Institute, Ogbomoso 210214, Nigeria
2. Computaional Biology and Drug Discovery Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso 210214, Nigeria
3. Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Immunology and Bioinformatics, Department of Microbiology, Adeleke University, Ede 232104, Nigeria
4. Department of Biochemistry, Bowen University, Iwo 232101, Nigeria
5. Institute of Advanced Medical Research and Training (IAMRAT), College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan 200005, Nigeria

Abstract

Background

Available Epstein Barr virus (EBV) vaccine has tirelessly harnessed the gp350 glycoprotein as its target epitope, but the result has not been preventively encouraging although it helped manage EBV-associated malignancies. Right here we designed a global multi-epitope vaccine for EBV; with special attention to make sure all strains and preventive antigens are covered.

Methods

Using robust computational vaccine design approach, our proposed vaccine is armed with 6 -16mers linear B-cell epitopes, 4 -9mer CTL epitopes, 8 -15mer HTL epitopes which are verified to induce interleukin 4, 10 & IFN-gamma. We employed deep computational mining coupled with expert intelligence in designing the vaccine, using human Beta defensin-3 – which has been reported to induce same TLRs as EBV- as the adjuvant. The tendency of the vaccine to cause autoimmune disorder is quenched by the assurance that the construct contains no EBNA-1 homolog.

Results

The protein vaccine construct exhibited excellent physicochemical attribute such as Aliphatic index 59.55 and GRAVY -0.710; ProsaWeb Z score of -3.04. Further computational analysis revealed the vaccine docked favorably with TLR 1,2,4 &9 with satisfactory interaction patterns that can promote or induce immune response. In addition, the vaccine construct exhibited high antigenicity, with no toxic or allergic residues present.

Conclusions

With a global coverage of 85.75% and the stable molecular dynamics result obtained for the best two docking interactions, we are optimistic that the constructed non-toxic, non-allergenic multi-epitope vaccine will help to ameliorate the EBV-associated diseases- which include various malignancies, tumors and cancers- preventively and most importantly prevent the occurrence of multiple sclerosis associated with EBNA-1 antigen.