Immunoinformatics Approach to Designing a Subunit Vaccine Construct of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Outer Membrane Epitopes

Introduction: Antibiotic-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a critical priority pathogen, highlighting the critical need for developing new strategies, particularly prophylactic measures. This research focuses on incorporating highly antigenic elements from essential, surface-exposed outer membrane proteins of P. aeruginosa to design a polypeptide-based subunit vaccine capable of inducing a strong immune response, using immunoinformatics approaches. Methods: Ten essential outer membrane proteins of P. aeruginosa were analyzed using three online servers (ABCpred, BCPREDS, and LBtope) to predict B-cell epitopes and the IEDB server to predict CD8+ and CD4+ T-cell epitopes. The predicted epitopes were then assessed for physicochemical properties, allergenicity, and toxicity using relevant web servers. A vaccine construct incorporating the selected epitopes and an adjuvant was designed, and its 3D structure was modeled to study its interaction with Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4). Results: The final vaccine construct consisted of a 478-amino acid polypeptide incorporating 5 CD8+ T-cell, 5 CD4+ T-cell, and 15 B-cell epitopes. In silico analysis predicted the vaccine construct to be immunogenic, non-toxic, non-allergenic, and possess favorable physicochemical properties. Molecular docking simulations predicted strong binding affinity between the vaccine construct and TLR-4, suggesting its potential to elicit a robust immune response. Conclusion: These in silico analyses suggest that the designed subunit vaccine is potentially safe and effective against P. aeruginosa. However, experimental validation is necessary to confirm these predictions.

Immunoinformatics Approach to Designing a Subunit Vaccine Construct of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Outer Membrane Epitopes Keywords:

Pseudomonas aeruginosa , Vaccine development , Subunit vaccine , Epitope prediction , Immunoinformatics , Humoral immunity , Outer membrane proteins