Fatemeh Heidarnejad, Ali Namvar, Seyed Mehdi Sadat, Parisa Moradi Pordanjani, Fatemeh Rezaei, Haideh Namdari, Sina Arjmand, Azam Bolhassani
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
The HIV-1 virus has been regarded as a catastrophe for human well-being. The global incidence of HIV-1-infected individuals is increasing. Hence, development of effective immunostimulatory molecules has recently attracted an increasing attention in the field of vaccine design against HIV-1 infection. In this study, we explored the impacts of CD40L and IFN-γ as immunostimulatory adjuvants for our candidate HIV-1 Nef vaccine in human and mouse using immunoinformatics analyses. Overall, 18 IFN-γ-based vaccine constructs (9 constructs in human and 9 constructs in mouse), and 18 CD40L-based vaccine constructs (9 constructs in human and 9 constructs in mouse) were designed. To find immunogenic epitopes, important characteristics of each component (e.g., MHC-I and MHC-II binding, and peptide-MHC-I/MHC-II molecular docking) were determined. Then, the selected epitopes were applied to create multiepitope constructs. Finally, the physicochemical properties, linear and discontinuous B cell epitopes, and molecular interaction between the 3D structure of each construct and CD40, IFN-γ receptor or toll-like receptors (TLRs) were predicted. Our data showed that the full-length CD40L and IFN-γ linked to the N-terminal region of Nef were capable of inducing more effective immune response than multiepitope vaccine constructs. Moreover, molecular docking of the non-allergenic full-length- and epitope-based CD40L and IFN-γ constructs to their cognate receptors, CD40 and IFN-γ receptors, and TLRs 4 and 5 in mouse were more potent than in human. Generally, these findings suggest that the full forms of these adjuvants could be more efficient for improvement of HIV-1 Nef vaccine candidate compared to the designed multiepitope-based constructs.
期刊介绍:
Biotechnology Letters is the world’s leading rapid-publication primary journal dedicated to biotechnology as a whole – that is to topics relating to actual or potential applications of biological reactions affected by microbial, plant or animal cells and biocatalysts derived from them.
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Papers describing the isolation and identification of microorganisms are not regarded as appropriate but such information can be appended as supporting information to a paper. Papers dealing with simple process development are usually considered to lack sufficient novelty or interest to warrant publication.