Immunoinformatics and structural vaccinology approach to design a Multi-Epitope Subunit Vaccine against Francisella tularensis through In Silico modeling

Abstract Background Francisella tularensis is a category A pathogen with the maximum infectious and death rates, demanding the development of a vaccine. In the last eight years, growing interest in F. tularensis has resulted in the generation of data about the pathogen and its host binding method. So far, extensive information is available, but there is no authorized vaccination on the market. Method Using in silico techniques, present study design to develop multi-epitope vaccine. From F. tularensis, B-cell and T-cell epitopes were predicted to design a vaccine. The selection of epitope was selected on basis of lower percentile score, antigenicity, Non-toxicity, and immunogenicity scores. The 193 amino-acid long vaccine construct was obtained by joining the epitopes through EAAAK, CPGPG and AAY Linkers. Result Our vaccine represented overall the good stability, expression, immunostimulatory capabilities and solubility. Moreover, molecular docking and MD simulation exhibited strong interaction and stability of polypeptide vaccine construct. Conclusion: Design vaccine was verified as efficient in different computer-based immune response investigations and population coverage was good. But designed vaccines require scientific consensus and require in vitro experimental work also.