Computational Design of a Multi Epitope Vaccine Against Staphylococcus warneri for Combatting Recurrent UTIs and Skin...

Staphylococcus warneri is a pathogenic bacterium that causes multiple life-threatening diseases, such as urinary tract and skin infections globally, with approximately one million new cases reported each day. The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified it as a "superbug," and no licensed vaccine is currently assessable. In this study, we designed a vaccine employing B and T-cell epitopes from two highly antigenic membrane proteins of S. warneri. We found activation of the immune response using an advanced immunoinformatic approach. Immunoinformatic approaches were utilized to predict epitopes, and only those exhibiting non-toxic profiles, antigenicity, non-allergenic characteristics, and immunogenicity were considered. The vaccine was constructed using B and T-cell epitopes predicted through advanced immunoinformatics, ensuring that only those with non-toxic, antigenic, non-allergenic, and immunogenic profiles were selected. These selected epitopes were linked together to create a multi-epitope vaccination utilizing the linkers AAY and GPGPG, which were subsequently combined with the 50S ribosomal protein L7/L12 to boost the antigenicity of the vaccine. The immunogenic ability of this multi-epitope vaccine was determined by its binding affinity of the vaccine with the essential Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR-5), through molecular docking. Molecular docking simulations showed favorable binding of the vaccine construct to Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), with a binding affinity of - 989.3 kcal/mol, suggesting strong potential for immune activation. The global population coverage of the vaccine epitopes was predicted to be 99.47%. Simulation studies were performed to calculate stability of the docking complex over the time. Therefore, there is an urgent need to test the safety and efficacy of the developed model both in vitro and in vivo.