Epitope-based vaccine design against the membrane and nucleocapsid proteins of SARS-CoV-2

The high prevalence and mortality rate of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a major global concern. Bioinformatics approaches have helped to develop new strategies to combat infectious agents, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Indeed, the structural proteins of microorganisms provide suitable epitopes for the development of vaccines to prevent infectious diseases.

The present study aimed to use bioinformatics tools to find peptides from the membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins with effective cellular and humoral immunogenicity.

Sequences of the M and N proteins were sourced from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). The conserved regions of the proteins with the highest immunogenicity were identified and assessed using different servers, and the physicochemical and biochemical properties of the epitopes were evaluated. Finally, allergenicity, antigenicity and docking to human leukocyte antigen (HLA) were investigated.

The data indicated that the best epitopes were LVIGFLFLT and LFLTWICLL (as membrane epitopes), and KLDDKDPNFKDQ (as a nucleocapsid epitope), with significant immunogenicity and no evidence of allergenicity. The 3 epitopes are stable peptides that can interact with HLA to induce strong immune responses.

The findings indicate that 3 common epitopes could effectively elicit an immune response against the disease. Hence, in vitro and in vivo studies are recommended to confirm the theoretical information.