Epitope-Based Peptide Vaccine Against Fructose-Bisphosphate Aldolase of Using Immunoinformatics Approaches

Abstract

Background: Mycetoma is a distinct body tissue destructive and neglected tropical disease. It is endemic in many tropical and subtropical countries. Mycetoma is caused by bacterial infections ( actinomycetoma ) such as Streptomyces somaliensis and Nocardiae or true fungi ( eumycetoma ) such as Madurella mycetomatis . To date, treatments fail to cure the infection and the available marketed drugs are expensive and toxic upon prolonged usage. Moreover, no vaccine was prepared yet against mycetoma. Aim: The aim of this study is to predict effective epitope-based vaccine against fructose-bisphosphate aldolase enzymes of M. mycetomatis using immunoinformatics approaches. Methods and materials: Fructose-bisphosphate aldolase of M. mycetomatis sequence was retrieved from NCBI. Different prediction tools were used to analyze the nominee’s epitopes in Immune Epitope Database for B-cell, T-cell MHC class II and class I. Then the proposed peptides were docked using Autodock 4.0 software program. Results and conclusions: The proposed and promising peptides KYLQ show a potent binding affinity to B-cell, FEYARKHAF with a very strong binding affinity to MHC I alleles and FFKEHGVPL that shows a very strong binding affinity to MHC II and MHC I alleles. This indicates a strong potential to formulate a new vaccine, especially with the peptide FFKEHGVPL which is likely to be the first proposed epitope-based vaccine against fructose-bisphosphate aldolase of M. mycetomatis . This study recommends an in vivo assessment for the most promising peptides especially FFKEHGVPL.