Identification of B-Cell Epitopes for Eliciting Neutralizing Antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein through Bioinformatics and Monoclonal Antibody Targeting

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 23; no. 8; p. 4341
• Main Authors: Lim, Hui Xuan, Masomian, Malihe, Khalid, Kanwal, Kumar, Asqwin Uthaya, MacAry, Paul A, Poh, Chit Laa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 14-04-2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Adaptive immunity; Antibodies; Antibodies, Monoclonal; Antibodies, Neutralizing; Antibodies, Viral; Antigens; B-cell epitope; Bioinformatics; Clinical trials; Computational Biology; Coronaviruses; COVID-19 - prevention & control; COVID-19 Vaccines; Critical components; Disease control; Epitope mapping; Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte; Genomes; Glycoproteins; Humans; Literature reviews; Lymphocytes B; Monoclonal antibodies; mRNA vaccines; Neutralizing; Nucleocapsids; Peptides; Pneumonia; Proteins; Public health; Review; SARS-CoV-2; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus - chemistry; Spike protein; Three dimensional analysis; vaccine; Vaccines; Vaccines, Subunit; Virus attachment; SARS-CoV-2; vaccine; B-cell epitope; spike protein
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms23084341

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a global public health crisis. Effective COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Astra Zeneca have made significant impacts in controlling the COVID-19 burden, especially in reducing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and hospitalization incidences. In view of the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants, vaccines developed against the Wuhan strain were less effective against the variants. Neutralizing antibodies produced by B cells are a critical component of adaptive immunity, particularly in neutralizing viruses by blocking virus attachment and entry into cells. Therefore, the identification of protective linear B-cell epitopes can guide epitope-based peptide designs. This study reviews the identification of SARS-CoV-2 B-cell epitopes within the spike, membrane and nucleocapsid proteins that can be incorporated as potent B-cell epitopes into peptide vaccine constructs. The bioinformatic approach offers a new in silico strategy for the mapping and identification of potential B-cell epitopes and, upon in vivo validation, would be useful for the rapid development of effective multi-epitope-based vaccines. Potent B-cell epitopes were identified from the analysis of three-dimensional structures of monoclonal antibodies in a complex with SARS-CoV-2 from literature mining. This review provides significant insights into the elicitation of potential neutralizing antibodies by potent B-cell epitopes, which could advance the development of multi-epitope peptide vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.