Design of a common vaccine against influenza and SARS-COV-2 viruses by using In Silico tools

Backgrounds: Among various infections, acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs) have thehighest incidence and mortality in the world. These infections are caused by variousmicroorganisms such as the influenza virus and SARS-COV-2. The potential effect of influenzaalongside COVID-19 on mortality, morbidity and health-service capacity is a main concern,although, recently, little is understood about the interaction between these two pathogenicrespiratory viruses. So, there is an urgent need to design and develop efficient vaccines toprevent further cases of these diseases. In this study, we designed a novel multi-epitope vaccineagainst influenza and SARS-COV-2 infections.Materials and Methods: HA, M1 proteins from influenza virus and S, E, M proteins fromSARS-COV-2 virus were analyzed for use in vaccine structure. The B cell and T cell epitopesidentification, energy minimization, prediction of Interferon-gamma response, allergenicity,toxicity was performed using different bioinformatics tools. The best peptides were selected aftermolecular docking. The selected epitopes were fused by linkers to make the multi-epitopevaccine. 3D model of the vaccine candidate was generated by I-TASSER server.Results: The results indicated that the designed vaccine candidate is non-allergen, nontoxic withhigh stability and immunogenicity.Conclusion: Altogether, the new multi-epitope vaccine can be an appropriate vaccine candidateagainst Influenza and SARS-COV-2 infections.

Design of a common vaccine against influenza and SARS-COV-2 viruses by using In Silico tools Keywords:

Influenza , SARS-COV-2 , In silico , Molecular docking , Peptide