Design of a candidate multi-epitope vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 using reverse vaccinology approach

Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) infection as a global epidemic that is spreading dramatically day to day. Currently, many efforts have been made against COVID-19 through the designing or developing of specific vaccine or drug, worldwide. In this study, we used the bioinformatics approach to design an effective multi-epitope vaccine against COVID-19 based on Spike (S) protein. Here, we employed in silico tools to identify potential T and B cell epitopes from S protein that have the ability to induce cellular and humoral immunity. Then, the peptide sequence of potential T, B cell epitopes and flagellin (as adjuvant molecule) were joined together by suitable linkers to construct of candidate multi-epitope vaccine (MEV). Subsequently, immunological and structural evaluations such as antigenicity, allergenicity, 3D modeling, molecular docking, fast flexibility simulations as well as in silico cloning were performed. Immunological and structural computational data showed that designed MEV potentially has proper capacity for inducing of cellular and humoral immune responses against COVID-19. Based on the preliminary results, in vitro and in vivo experiments are required for validation in the future.