Identification of relevant regions on structural and nonstructural proteins of Zika virus for vaccine and diagnostic test development: an in silico approach

• Main Authors: E.A. Salvador, G.A. Pires de Souza, L.C. Cotta Malaquias, T. Wang, L.F. Leomil Coelho
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2019-05-01
• Series: New Microbes and New Infections
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297519300022

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus belonging to the Flaviviridae family and the genus Flavivirus. Infection with ZIKV causes a mild, self-limiting febrile illness called Zika fever. However, ZIKV infection has been recently associated with microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome. Vaccines for the disease are a high priority of World Health Organization. Several studies are currently being conducted to develop a vaccine against ZIKV, but until now there is no licensed ZIKV vaccine. This study used a novel immunoinformatics approach to identify potential T-cell immunogenic epitopes present in the structural and nonstructural proteins of ZIKV. Fourteen T-cell candidate epitopes were identified on ZIKV structural and nonstructural proteins: pr36−50; C61−75; C103−117; E374−382; E477−491; NS2a90−104; NS2a174−188; NS2a179−193; NS2a190−204; NS2a195−209; NS2a200−214; NS3175−189; and NS4a82−96; NS4a99−113. Among these epitopes, only E374−382 is a human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type I restricted epitope. All identified epitopes showed a low similarity with other important flaviviruses but had a high conservation rate among the ZIKV strains and a high population coverage rate. Therefore, these predicted T-cell epitopes are potential candidates targets for development of vaccines to prevent ZIKV infection. Keywords: Diagnostic test, Immunoinformatic, T-cell epitope, vaccine, Zika virus