Immunoinformatics driven construction of multi-epitope vaccine candidate against Ascaris lumbricoides using its entire immunogenic epitopes.

Objective: Ascaris lumbricoides infects 80 million people per year, causing malnutrition, stunted growth of children etc., but there is no vaccine available against it. We aimed to design a multimeric-subunit vaccine using comprehensive immunoinformatic approach.
Research Design and Methods: The T and B cell epitopes were shortlisted on antigenicity, allergenicity, and toxicity from proteome data and joined with appropriate linkers. The physical characteristics of vaccine candidate was calculated and docking/molecular dynamic simulation performed to validate its robustness. The multimeric protein was codon optimized and in-silico cloned in pET28b.
Results: From the 23,604 proteins of Ascaris, we filtered based on epitope prediction, localization, antigenicity, and allergenicity. Prepared a vaccine of 534 amino acid long, 56.31 kD weight and pI 4.52. Physiochemical features showed it is soluble, highly antigenic and non-allergenic. Its tertiary structure was forecasted, certified, and refined. The immunoinformatic simulation studies showed it to be potent T and B cell stimulator.
Conclusions: We identified highly antigenic peptides of Ascaris from its proteome with good potential to induce innate as well as humoral immune response. These peptides were used to design a chimeric vaccine against Ascariasis infection, which can be used for prophylactic purpose but needs experimental and clinical validation.