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Link to original content: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32106567/
Preliminary Identification of Potential Vaccine Targets for the COVID-19 Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Based on SARS-CoV Immunological Studies - PubMed Skip to main page content
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. 2020 Feb 25;12(3):254.
doi: 10.3390/v12030254.

Preliminary Identification of Potential Vaccine Targets for the COVID-19 Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Based on SARS-CoV Immunological Studies

Syed Faraz Ahmed  1 , Ahmed A Quadeer  1 , Matthew R McKay  1   2
Affiliations

Preliminary Identification of Potential Vaccine Targets for the COVID-19 Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Based on SARS-CoV Immunological Studies

Syed Faraz Ahmed et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

The beginning of 2020 has seen the emergence of COVID-19 outbreak caused by a novel coronavirus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). There is an imminent need to better understand this new virus and to develop ways to control its spread. In this study, we sought to gain insights for vaccine design against SARS-CoV-2 by considering the high genetic similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV, which caused the outbreak in 2003, and leveraging existing immunological studies of SARS-CoV. By screening the experimentally-determined SARS-CoV-derived B cell and T cell epitopes in the immunogenic structural proteins of SARS-CoV, we identified a set of B cell and T cell epitopes derived from the spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins that map identically to SARS-CoV-2 proteins. As no mutation has been observed in these identified epitopes among the 120 available SARS-CoV-2 sequences (as of 21 February 2020), immune targeting of these epitopes may potentially offer protection against this novel virus. For the T cell epitopes, we performed a population coverage analysis of the associated MHC alleles and proposed a set of epitopes that is estimated to provide broad coverage globally, as well as in China. Our findings provide a screened set of epitopes that can help guide experimental efforts towards the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: 2019 novel coronavirus; 2019-nCoV; B cell epitopes; COVID-19; Coronavirus; MERS-CoV; SARS-CoV; SARS-CoV-2; T cell epitopes; vaccine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparison of the similarity of structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 with the corresponding proteins of SARS-CoV and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)-CoV. (a) Percentage genetic similarity of the individual structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 with those of SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. The reference sequence of each coronavirus (Materials and Methods) was used to calculate the percentage genetic similarity. (b) Circular phylogram of the phylogenetic trees of the four structural proteins. All trees were constructed based on the available unique sequences using PASTA [31] and rooted with the outgroup Zaria Bat CoV strain (accession ID: HQ166910.1).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Location of SARS-CoV S protein subunits and SARS-CoV-derived B cell epitopes on the protein structure (PDB ID: 5XLR). (a) Subunits S1 and S2 are indicated in purple and green color, respectively. The receptor binding motif lies within the S1 subunit and is indicated in orange color. (b) Residues of the linear B cell epitopes, that were identical in SARS-CoV-2 (Table 4), are shown in red color. The dark and light shade reflect the surface and buried residues, respectively. (c) Location of discontinuous B cell epitopes that share at least one identical residue with corresponding SARS-CoV-2 sites (Table 5). Identical epitope residues are shown in red color, while the remaining epitope residues are shown in blue color. Both the side view (left panel) and the top view (right panel) of the structure are shown.
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