Designing a T-cell epitope-based vaccine using in silico approaches against the Sal k 1 allergen of Salsola kali plant

• Published in: Scientific reports 2024-02, Vol.14 (1), p.5040-5040, Article 5040
• Main Authors: Shams, Mohammad Hossein, Sohrabi, Seyyed Mohsen, Jafari, Reza, Sheikhian, Ali, Motedayyen, Hossein, Baharvand, Peyman Amanolahi, Hasanvand, Amin, Fouladvand, Ali, Assarehzadegan, Mohammad-Ali
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/250/251; 631/250/590; Allergenicity; Allergens; Allergic diseases; Bioassays; CD4 antigen; Cloning; Deserts; Epitopes; Humanities and Social Sciences; Immunoinformatics; Immunotherapy; In silico; Lymphocytes; Lymphocytes T; Major histocompatibility complex; multidisciplinary; Physicochemical properties; Pollen; Pollinosis; Proteomes; Receptor mechanisms; Sal k 1; Salsola kali; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); T-cell epitope-based vaccine; TLR4 protein; Toll-like receptors; Toxicity; Vaccine; Vaccines
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-55788-x

Allergens originated from Salsola kali ( Russian thistle ) pollen grains are one of the most important sources of aeroallergens causing pollinosis in desert and semi-desert regions. T-cell epitope-based vaccines (TEV) are more effective among different therapeutic approaches developed to alleviate allergic diseases. The physicochemical properties, and B as well as T cell epitopes of Sal k 1 (a major allergen of S. kali ) were predicted using immunoinformatic tools. A TEV was constructed using the linkers EAAAK, GPGPG and the most suitable CD4 + T cell epitopes. RS04 adjuvant was added as a TLR4 agonist to the amino (N) and carboxyl (C) terminus of the TEV protein. The secondary and tertiary structures, solubility, allergenicity, toxicity, stability, physicochemical properties, docking with immune receptors, BLASTp against the human and microbiota proteomes, and in silico cloning of the designed TEV were assessed using immunoinformatic analyses. Two CD4 + T cell epitopes of Sal k1 that had high affinity with different alleles of MHC-II were selected and used in the TEV. The molecular docking of the TEV with HLADRB1, and TLR4 showed TEV strong interactions and stable binding pose to these receptors. Moreover, the codon optimized TEV sequence was cloned between Nco I and Xho I restriction sites of pET-28a(+) expression plasmid. The designed TEV can be used as a promising candidate in allergen-specific immunotherapy against S. kali . Nonetheless, effectiveness of this vaccine should be validated through immunological bioassays.