High-throughput in silico multi-epitope reverse vaccine design against hydatidosis

The Middle East is a significant hotspot for human hydatidosis caused by Echinococcus granulosus, a complex multi-stage pathogen exhibiting antigenic variation with diverse epitopes. Multi-epitope vaccines, designed using immunoinformatics, represent a promising approach to effectively control this challenging parasite. A total of 1150 secreted, non-toxic, antigenic proteins were obtained from database and analyzed for their immunogenic potential, leading to the identification of 1024 CTL, 80 HTL, and 172 LBL prioritized epitopes, which were then ranked and clustered to prefer the most immunogenicity epitopes to include in novel vaccine construct. The chosen Construct (Con2) was modified for dual-plasmid insertion, facilitating the expression of three different vaccine constructs which were predicted by C-ImmSim to stimulate robust IFN-γ/IL-2 production and enhance IgM/IgG antibody secretion. Utilizing in silico, next-generation vaccine design, we propose several vaccine candidates that warrant further validation through in vitro laboratory testing and in vivo studies to assess their immunological efficacy.