Immunoinformatics and molecular docking studies reveal potential epitope-based peptide vaccine against DENV-NS3 protein

Dengue, still a "Neglected Tropical Disease" is somehow injustice and remains uncontrolled globally. World Health Organization (2012-2020) reported that the world's half population is living in dengue-affected regions. Therefore, effective drug candidates or promising vaccines are urgently needed to control the dengue. It is an acute febrile disease caused by mosquito borne dengue viruses (DENVs) which belong to the genus Flavivirus with four serotypes. In present work, immunoinformatics approach was utilized to predict the antigenic epitopes of dengue proteins for the development of DENV vaccine. B-cell and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitopes were predicted for NS3 dengue protein. Docking complexes of 17 antigenic B-cell epitopes of various lengths and 4 CTL epitopes with antigenic sites were investigated followed by binding interaction analyses of top predicted peptides with MHC-I HLA-A2 molecule. These predicted epitopes with antigenic amino acids might present a preliminary set of peptides for future vaccine development against DENV. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.