Potential T-cell and B-cell Epitopes of 2019-nCoV

As of Feb 16th 2020, 2019-nCoV has infected more than 51,857 people across 26 countries and claimed 1666 lives. 2019-nCoV is a novel form of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and has high similarity with SARS-CoV. No approved vaccine yet exists for 2019-nCoV or any form of coronavirus. Here we use computational tools from structural biology and machine learning to identify 2019-nCoV T-cell and B-cell epitopes based on viral protein antigen presentation and antibody binding properties. These epitopes can be used to develop more effective vaccines and identify neutralizing antibodies. We identified 405 viral peptides with good antigen presentation scores for both human MHC-I and MHC-II alleles, and two potential neutralizing B-cell epitopes near the 2019-nCoV spike protein receptor binding domain (440-460 and 494-506). Analyzing mutation profiles of 68 viral genomes from four continents, we identified 96 coding-change mutations. These mutations are more likely to occur in regions with good MHC-I presentation scores (p=0.02). No mutations are present near the spike protein receptor binding domain. We validated our computational pipeline with SARS-CoV experimental data.