Designing a broad-spectrum multi-epitope mRNA candidate vaccine targeting the Porcine Pseudorabies Virus (PRV) gB protein based on immunoinformatics-guided approaches

Abstract Pseudorabies virus (PRV) is an alpha-herpesvirus capable of infecting pigs, resulting in reproductive disorders in sows, orchitis in boars, piglet diarrhea, and various other diseases, thus inflicting significant economic losses on the swine industry. The advancement of immunoinformatic and computer epitope prediction technologies holds promise in designing optimal candidate vaccines. Therefore, in this study, based on the non-conserved properties of PRV gB proteins and adsorption acting on viruses, we used immunoinformatics tools to design a multi-epitope mRNA vaccine for gB proteins of the three PRV vaccine strains (types I and II) containing five CTL, two HTL, and five LBL shared epitopes, which was named the MgB vaccine in this study. Subsequent steps involved the prediction, optimization, and evaluation of the vaccine's structure and physicochemical properties to closely mimic the natural state. Concurrently, the immunization effect of the vaccine is evaluated by simulating the reaction process of the vaccine with the receptor in vivo and the immune response of the vaccine. The immunoinformatic analysis revealed promising immunological activity of the multi-epitope mRNA vaccine, positioning it as a potential candidate for commercial PRV vaccines. Finally, the MgB vaccine sequences were codon-optimized for in-silico cloning.