The Advantage of Using Immunoinformatic Tools on Vaccine Design and Development for Coronavirus

Abstract

After the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 by the end of 2019, the vaccine development strategies became a worldwide priority. Furthermore, the appearances of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants challenge researchers to develop new pharmacological or preventive strategies. However, vaccines still represent an efficient way to control the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic worldwide. This review describes the importance of bioinformatic and immunoinformatic tools (in silico) for guide vaccine design. In silico strategies permit the identification of epitopes (immunogenic peptides) which could be used as potential vaccines, as well as nonacarriers such as: vector viral based vaccines, RNA-based vaccines and dendrimers through immunoinformatics. Currently, nucleic acid and protein sequential as well structural analyses through bioinformatic tools allow us to get immunogenic epitopes which can induce immune response alone or in complex with nanocarriers. One of the advantages of in silico techniques is that they facilitate the identification of epitopes, while accelerating the process and helping to economize some stages of the development of safe vaccines.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; bioinformatics; epitope; immunoinformatics; vaccine.

Figure 1

Design process of vaccine development against SARS-CoV-2. As a first step, of all the reported sequences, a consensus sequence would be obtained and analyses would be carried out to predict the probable mutation sites considering the 3D structural data using in silico studies. The data would enhance the prediction of epitopes leading to the design of an epitope vaccine. Created with BioRender.com (accessed on 29 October 2022).