Immunoinformatics Approach for Epitope-Based Peptide Vaccine Design and Active Site Prediction against Polyprotein of Emerging Oropouche Virus

Oropouche virus (OROV) is an emerging pathogen which causes Oropouche fever and meningitis in humans. Several outbreaks of OROV in South America, especially in Brazil, have changed its status as an emerging disease, but no vaccine or specific drug target is available yet. Our approach was to identify the epitope-based vaccine candidates as well as the ligand-binding pockets through the use of immunoinformatics. In this report, we identified both T-cell and B-cell epitopes of the most antigenic OROV polyprotein with the potential to induce both humoral and cell-mediated immunity. Eighteen highly antigenic and immunogenic CD8 + T-cell epitopes were identified, including three 100% conserved epitopes ( TSSWGCEEY , CSMCGLIHY , and LAIDTGCLY ) as the potential vaccine candidates. The selected…