Conglomeration of highly antigenic nucleoproteins to inaugurate a heterosubtypic next generation vaccine candidate against Arenaviridae family

Arenaviral infections often resulting in lethal Hemorrhagic Fevers (HF) affect primarily African and South American regions. To date, there is no FDA-approved licensed vaccine against arenaviruses and treatments have been limited to supportive therapies. Hence, the study was employed to design a highly immunogenic heterosubtypic vaccine candidate against Arenaviridae family. The whole proteomes of Lassa virus (LASV), Lymphocytic Chorio Meningitis Virus (LCMV), Lujo virus and Guanarito virus were retrieved from NCBI database and assessed to determine the most antigenic viral proteins. Only the conserved sequences were used for T cell and B cell epitope prediction to ensure protective response against a wide range of viral strains. For each virus, nucleoproteins were identified as most antigenic which generated a plethora of antigenic epitopes. The proposed epitopes were highly conserved (up to 100%) and showed high cumulative population coverage. Moreover, results revealed that among the top epitopes, T cell epitope GWPYIGSRS were conserved in Argentine mammarenavirus (Junin virus) and Brazilian mammarenavirus (Sabia virus), while B cell epitope NLLYKICLSG were conserved in Bolivian mammarenavirus (Machupo virus) and Brazilian mammarenavirus (Sabia virus), indicating the possibility of final vaccine constructs to confer broad range immunity in the host. A total 3 constructs were designed by the combination of top epitopes from each protein along with suitable adjuvant and linkers. Different physicochemical properties revealed the superiority of construct V1 in terms of safety and efficacy. Docking analysis of the refined vaccine structure with different MHC molecules and human immune receptors were also biologically significant. The vaccine receptor complex (V1-TLR3) showed minimal deformability at molecular level. Moreover, construct V1 was compatible for insertion into pET28a(+) vector and heterologous cloning in srain K12. However, the results were based on different sequence analysis and various immune databases. Further wet lab based studies using model animals are highly recommended for the experimental validation of the designed vaccine candidates.