In silico prediction of CD8⁺ and CD4⁺ T cell epitopes in Leishmania major proteome: Using immunoinformatics

The leishmaniases are NDTs (neglected tropical diseases) that affect people all over the world. They are brought on by protozoans from the genus Leishmania and disseminated by phlebotomine flies that are afflicted with the disease. The best option to manage and lower the incidence of these diseases has been thought by the creation of a safe and effective vaccination. This research used an in silico based mining approach to look for high potential epitopes that might bind to MHC Class I and MHC Class II molecules (mainly; HLA-A*02:01 & HLA-DRB1*03:01) from human population in order to promote vaccine development. Based on the presence of signal peptides, GPI anchors, antigenicity predictions, and a subtractive proteomic technique, we have screened 17 putative antigenic proteins from the 8083 total proteins of L. major. After that thorough immunogenic epitope prediction were done using IEDB-AR tools. We isolated five immunogenic epitopes (three 9-mer & two 15-mer) from five antigenic proteins through docking and MD simulation analysis. Finally, these five anticipated epitopes, viz., TLPEIPVNV, ELMAPVFGL, TLAAAVALL, NSINIRLDGVTSAGF and NVPLVVDASSLFRVA have considerably stronger binding potential with their respective alleles and may trigger immunological responses. The goal of this work was to identify MHC restricted epitopes for CD8⁺ and CD4⁺ T cells activation using immunoinformatics in order to identify potential vaccine candidates against L. major parasites.