Table 4 Summary of related studies on in silico design and evaluation of candidate vaccines against visceral leishmaniasis
Target species | Protein source | Principle basis of protein selection | In silico screened epitope features | T cell epitope class | Design of vaccine construct | Vaccine evaluation approach | Evaluation features | Theoretical findings | Experimental findings | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
L. donovani | Published literature on experimental proteomes of promastigotes/ amastigotes | Increased abundance in amastigotes at protein level; experimental secretion; presence of secretion signals; antigenicity scores | MHC-binding affinity; population coverage; IFN-γ epitope; non-IL-10 epitope; non-B cell epitope | MHC I; MHC II | Chimeric: TLR4 adjuvant + MHC I + MHC II (combination selected based on set criteria) | In silico | Physicochemical properties; simulation of immune response; structural dynamics of vaccine-receptor complex | Antigenicity score: 0.8; coverage: > 98% global; Th1 type potential response; potentially stable binding to receptor | Not available | This study |
L. donovani | Screening proteins in GenBank database | Presence of secretion signals | MHC-binding affinity | MHC I; MHC II | Chimeric: TLR4 adjuvant + MHC I + MHC II; disulfide engineering | In silico | Physicochemical properties; binding pocket evaluation; structural dynamics of vaccine-receptor complex | Antigenicity score: 0.77; potentially stable binding to receptor | Not available | [66] |
L. donovani | Complete proteome from TriTryDB database; random proteins | Presence of secretion signal; antigenicity scores | MHC-binding affinity; AAR score; population coverage; cluster analysis | MHC I; MHC II | Ensemble | In silico | Physicochemical properties; simulation of immune response; docking of epitope-HLA | Comparable HLA binding affinity of test peptides; coverage: > 99% in endemic area | Not available | [67] |
L. donovani | Published literature on protein expression | Increased expression in amastigotes | MHC-binding affinity; TAP binding; population coverage; peptide-HLA docking score | MHC I | Ensemble | In silico, in vitro and in vivo | Population coverage; T cell proliferation; cytokine production; immunization in BALB/c mice | Population coverage: > 92% global | Proliferative CD8+ T cell response; Th1 type cytokine production | [70] |
L. donovani | Published literature on protein expression | Increased expression in amastigotes | MHC-binding affinity; population coverage; IFN-γ epitope; peptide-HLA docking score | MHC II | Alone or ensemble | In silico, in vitro and in vivo | Structural dynamics of peptide-HLA complex; cytokine production; T cell proliferation; immunization in BALB/c mice | Potentially stable binding to HLA | Th1 type cytokine production; spleen cell proliferation in mice | [11] |
L. infantum | Published literature on protein immunogenicity | Experimentally evaluated immunogenic properties; presence of secretion signal | MHC-binding affinity | MHC I; MHC II | Multi-epitope | In vitro and in vivo | Immunization in BALB/c mice; lymphocytes proliferation assay; cytokine production | Not available | Spleen cell proliferation; Th1 type cytokine production; induction of CD8+ T cells | [10] |
L. infantum | Previous reports on whole proteome data mining and protein immunogenicity | Predicted antigen from subtractive genomics study; experimentally evaluated immunogenic properties | MHC-binding affinity; IFN-γ epitope | MHC I; MHC II | Chimeric: TLR4 Adjuvant + MHC-I + MHC-II + TLR4 Adjuvant | In silico | Physicochemical properties; structural dynamics of vaccine-receptor complex | Antigenicity score: 0.95; potentially stable binding to receptor | Not available (evaluated in a follow-up study) | [68] |