1.Construction of multi-epitope vaccine against the Rhipicephalus microplus tick: an immunoinformatics approach
Younas, M. ; Ashraf, K. ; Ijaz, M. ; Suleman, M. ; Chohan, T.A. ; Rahman, S.U. ; Rashid, M.I.
Tropical Biomedicine 2024;41(No.1):84-96
Rhipicephalus microplus, known as the hard tick, is a vector for the parasites Babesia spp. and
Anaplasma marginale, both of which can cause significant financial losses to the livestock industry.
There is currently no effective vaccine for R. microplus tick infestations, despite the identification of
numerous prospective tick vaccine candidates. As a result, the current research set out to develop
an immunoinformatics-based strategy using existing methods for designing a multi-epitope based
vaccination that is not only effective but also safe and capable of eliciting cellular and humoral immune
responses. First, R. microplus proteins Bm86, Subolesin, and Bm95 were used to anticipate and link B
and T-cell epitopes (HTL and CTL) to one another. Antigenicity testing, allergenicity assessment, and
toxicity screening were just a few of the many immunoinformatics techniques used to identify potent
epitopes. Multi-epitope vaccine design was chosen based on the antigenic score 0.935 that is promising
vaccine candidate. Molecular docking was used to determine the nature of the interaction between TLR2
and the vaccine construct. Finally, molecular dynamic simulation was used to assess the stability and
compactness of the resulting vaccination based on docking scores. The developed vaccine was shown
to be stable, have immunogenic qualities, be soluble, and to have high expression by in silico cloning.
These findings suggest that experimental investigation of the multi-epitope based vaccine designed in
the current study will produce achievable vaccine candidates against R. microplus ticks, enabling more
effective control of infestations.