IJOH Vol.10 No. 2 (July-December) Article - 7
Research Article
International Journal of One Health, 10(2): 216-229
https://doi.org/10.14202/IJOH.2024.216-229
Bridging One Health: Computational design of a multi-epitope messenger RNA vaccine for cross-species immunization against Nipah virus
2. S&T Fellows Program, Department of Science and Technology, Taguig City, Philippines.
3. Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila, Manila City, Philippines.
Background and Aim: Nipah virus (NiV) poses a threat to human and animal health, particularly swine, which serve as primary vectors for human transmission. Despite its severe risks, no NiV vaccine currently exists for humans or animal hosts; thus, innovative vaccine development approaches that address cross-species transmission are required. This study was computationally designed to evaluate a multi-epitope messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine targeting NiV for human and swine immunization.
Materials and Methods: B and T lymphocyte epitopes were identified from NiV structural proteins using multiple epitope prediction tools. All epitopes were linked to form a multi-epitope construct, and various adjuvant combinations were analyzed for physicochemical properties and immune simulation. Molecular docking and dynamics were employed to visualize the construct’s interaction with a host immune receptor. Signal peptides were added to the construct, and mRNA sequences were generated using LinearDesign. The minimum free energies (MFEs) and codon adaptation indices (CAI) were used to select the final mRNA sequence of the vaccine construct.
Results: Computational tools predicted 10 epitopes within NiV structural proteins that can be recognized by human and swine immune receptors. The construct with β-defensin 2 adjuvant was selected as the final immunogenic region after showing favorable immunogenicity profiles and physicochemical properties. The final vaccine sequence had higher MFE and CAI compared to the BioNTech/Pfizer BNT162b2 and Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccines.
Conclusion: The multi-epitope mRNA vaccine designed in this study shows promising results as a potential NiV vaccine candidate. Further in vivo and in vitro studies are required to confirm the efficacy.
Keywords: computational design, cross-species immunization, messenger RNA vaccine, multi-epitope, Nipah virus.
How to cite this article: Banico EC, Sira EMJS, Fajardo LE, and Orosco FL (2024) Bridging One Health: Computational design of a multi-epitope messenger RNA vaccine for cross-species immunization against Nipah virus, Int. J. One Health, 10(2): 216-229.
Received: 31-07-2024 Accepted: 01-10-2024 Published online: 04-11-2024
Corresponding author: E-mail:
DOI: 10.14202/IJOH.2024.216-229
Copyright: Banico, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
