Delineating blueprint of an epitope-based peptide vaccine against the multiple serovars of dengue virus: A hierarchical reverse vaccinology approach

Dengue is one of the most common life-threatening neglected tropical diseases of the world, therapeutics for whose treatment and prevention still remains undeveloped. Despite having been licensed, the existing vaccine (Dengvaxia) is rather inefficacious due to the presence of multiple serovars of the Dengue Virus (DENV). A dengue vaccine potent enough to work against all the serovars is very crucial, the development of which is time-intensive. Here, we have used a comprehensive hierarchical reverse vaccinology approach to design an epitope-based vaccine targeted against multiple serovars of the DENV. Conservancy and population coverage analysis of the predicted epitopes revealed robust immune response against multiple serovars of the DENV and various ethnicities of the human population. The final vaccine construct was designed…