Reverse vaccinology approach for the identification and characterization of outer membrane proteins of Shigella flexneri as potential cellular- and antibody-dependent vaccine candidates

• Published in: Clinical and experimental vaccine research (Seoul) Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 15 - 25
• Main Authors: Leow, Chiuan Yee, Kazi, Ada, Hisyam Ismail, Che Muhammad Khairul, Chuah, Candy, Lim, Boon Huat, Leow, Chiuan Herng, Banga Singh, Kirnpal Kaur
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea (South) Korean Vaccine Society 01-01-2020; The Korean Vaccine Society; 대한백신학회
• Subjects: Algorithms; Amino acids; Antibiotics; Antigens; Bacteria; Genomes; Identification; Localization; Original; Pathogenesis; Pathogens; Peptides; Proteins; Shigellosis; Software; Vaccines; Virulence; 예방의학; Antigens; Shigella flexneri; Bacterial outer membrane protein; Vaccines; Bioinformatics
• ISSN: 2287-3651; 2287-366X
• DOI: 10.7774/cevr.2020.9.1.15

In the developing world, bacillary dysentery is one of the most common communicable diarrheal infections. There are approximately 169 million cases of shigellosis reported worldwide. The disease is transmitted by a group of Gram-negative intracellular enterobacteria known as
,
,
, and
. Conventional treatment regimens for
have been less effective due to the development of resistant strains against antibiotics. Therefore, an effective vaccine for the long term control of
transmission is urgently needed.
In this study, a reverse vaccinology approach was employed to identify most conserved and immunogenic outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of
2a.
Five OMPs including fepA, ompC, nlpD_1, tolC, and nlpD_2 were identified as potential vaccine candidates. Protein-protein interactions analysis using STRING software (https://string-db.org/) revealed that five of these OMPs may potentially interact with other intracellular proteins which are involved in beta-lactam resistance pathway. B- and T-cell epitopes of the selected OMPs were predicted using BCPred as well as Propred I and Propred (http://crdd.osdd.net/raghava/propred/), respectively. Each of these OMPs contains regions which are capable to induce B- and T-cell immune responses.
Analysis acquired from this study showed that five selected OMPs have great potential for vaccine development against
infection. The predicted immunogenic epitopes can also be used for development of peptide vaccines or multi-epitope vaccines against human shigellosis. Reverse vaccinology is a promising strategy for the discovery of potential vaccine candidates which can be used for future vaccine development against global persistent infections.