IMMUNOINFORMATICS-BASED DESIGN AND IN SILICO EVALUATION OF HPV-16 L1 MULTI-EPITOPE VACCINE AGAINST CERVICAL CANCER

Abstract

HPV-16 is a high-risk subtype of human papillomaviruses associated with cervical cancer cases worldwide. Vaccine research for this virus is currently an area of interest both for preventive and therapeutic purposes. This study used an immunoinformatics approach to design a multi-epitope vaccine (MEV) from highly conserved regions of the major capsid protein L1 of HPV-16. The amino acid sequence of L1 protein was analyzed for conservation and homology. Potential B-cell, CTLs and HTLs epitopes were predicted and selected from the conserved regions. The selected epitopes were then fused together to construct a single MEV in linear form. MEV was analyzed for several physico-chemical, immunological and structural parameters. The MEV consisted of 505 amino acids with predicted molecular mass of 56.28 kDa, instability index of 36.57%, theoretical isoelectric point of 8.55, aliphatic index of 74.51 and GRAVY value of −0.347. MEV exhibited good antigenicity and non-allergenic nature. The MEV possessed organized secondary and 3D structures. The plot of Ramachandran showed that majority of the MEV residues were residing in the favored and allowed regions which are indicative of good stereochemical quality. MEV was further docked with TLR3 receptor and the results showed that MEV can fit well into the TLR3 receptor interaction site with a docking score of −11.35. Optimization of MEV for expression in Escherichia coli and in silico cloning into pET-28a(+) expression vector was also performed.