Background
Since the incidence of various types of leishmaniasis, no definitive treatment has been considered for the disease, and due to its high prevalence worldwide, this issue has caused many concerns. Cutaneous leishmaniasis is the most common form of the disease which, can cause malignant lesions on the skin. Vaccination for the prevention and treatment of leishmaniasis can be the most effective way to combat this disease. In this study, we designed a new multi-epitope vaccine using immunoinformatics tools, which confirmed its effectiveness in the in silico.
Methods
Sequences Leish-111f protein (TSA, Leif, and LMSTI1) of Leishmania major (L. major) were downloaded from GenBank and with the help of immunoinformatic tools, was designed a new multi-epitope vaccine antigen of L. major.
Result
Th and Tc epitopes of the leish-111f protein were predicted using bioinformatics tools. The final multi epitope was consisted of 18 CTL epitopes that joined by AAY linker. There are also 9 HTL epitopes in the structure of the final vaccine that were joined by GPGPG linker. The profilin adjuvant was also added into the construct by AAY Linker. There were 613 residues in the structure of the final construct. The multi epitope was stable and non-allergic. the data obtained from the binding of final multi-epitope vaccine-TLR11 residues (band lengths and weighted scores) showed that the ligand and the receptor have a high affinity to bind to each other. Moreover, in silico cloning approach, was improved the expression of proposed vaccine in E. coli host. Codon adaptation index and GC percent were calculated 1.0 and 53.35, respectively
Conclusion
Based on these results, we hope that the multi-epitope vaccine, which contains the most appropriate epitopes of a strong Leishmania major immunogen, along with an adjuvant capable of binding to TLR11, will further stimulate the immune system against the L.major.