COVID19: Exploring uncommon epitopes for a stable immune response through MHC1 binding

Abitogun, F. M.; Srivastava, R.; Sharma, S.; Komarysta, V.; Akurut, E.; Munir, N.; Macalalad, L.; Ojo-Rowland, O.; Owolabi, O.; Giwa, A.; Debnath, S.

doi:10.1101/2020.10.14.339689

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.10.14.339689

COVID19: Exploring uncommon epitopes for a stable immune response through MHC1 binding

Abitogun, F. M.·Srivastava, R.·Sharma, S.·Komarysta, V.·Akurut, E.·Munir, N.·Macalalad, L.·Ojo-Rowland, O.·Owolabi, O.·Giwa, A.·Debnath, S.

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Abstract

The COVID19 pandemic has resulted in 1,092,342 deaths as of 14th October 2020, indicating the urgent need for a vaccine. This study highlights novel protein sequences generated by shot gun sequencing protocols that could serve as potential antigens in the development of novel subunit vaccines and through a stringent inclusion criterion, we characterized these protein sequences and predicted their 3D structures. We found distinctly antigenic sequences from the SARS-CoV-2 that have led to identification of 4 proteins that demonstrate an advantageous binding with Human leukocyte antigen-1 molecules. Results show how previously unexplored proteins may serve as better candidates for subunit vaccine development due to their high stability and immunogenicity, reinforce by their HLA-1 binding propensities and low global binding energies. This study thus takes a unique approach towards furthering the development of vaccines by employing multiple consensus strategies involved in immuno-informatics technique.

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Abitogun, F. M., Srivastava, R., Sharma, S., Komarysta, V., Akurut, E., Munir, N., Macalalad, L., Ojo-Rowland, O., Owolabi, O., Giwa, A., Debnath, S.. 2020-10-14. COVID19: Exploring uncommon epitopes for a stable immune response through MHC1 binding. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.10.14.339689

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