Multi-Epitope mRNA Vaccine Targeting Dabie Bandavirus Glycoprotein: An Immunoinformatics-Based Study.

Abstract

Dabie bandavirus (DBV), also called severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), is a tick-borne virus that leads to a serious illness with high fever, low platelets, bleeding risks, and organ damage. Death rates can reach 5% to 30% in affected areas like China, South Korea, and Japan, where cases continue to rise. No approved vaccines or specific treatments are available, prompting the World Health Organization to mark it as a priority emerging infectious disease. This in silico study designs a multi-epitope mRNA vaccine candidate targeting the virus's membrane glycoprotein. After reviewing 1042 virus sequences, 9 cytotoxic T-cell (cytotoxic T lymphocyte [CTL]), 6 helper T-cell (helper T lymphocyte [HTL]), and 5 B-cell epitopes were chosen for their high conservation, predicted antigenicity, safety (non-toxic, low allergenicity), and lack of similarity to human proteins, achieving 94.77% global population coverage. The construct included beta-defensin-3 as an adjuvant. Computational predictions indicated favorable features: structural stability, potential binding to immune receptors (Toll-like receptor 3 [TLR3] and Toll-like receptor 4 [TLR4]), consistent behavior in molecular dynamics simulations (100 ns), encouraging patterns in immune response modeling, and good codon optimization for possible expression. These results are hypothesis-generating and based solely on in silico tools and require experimental validation, including in vitro studies, immunogenicity tests, and animal challenge models to assess any real-world potential.