Epitope-based Vaccine development: A detailed overview from in-silico vaccine design to wet lab validation

Abstract

In-silico epitope-based vaccine is the cornerstone of modern vaccine development and is illuminating by a growing number of experimental and computational methods. The reverse vaccinology approach uses computational screening of the whole proteome of a pathogen to identify the proteins with the attributes of potential vaccine targets. The selection of the right components [antigenic determinants, linkers, and intramolecular adjuvants] results in the development of a multi-epitope vaccine construct with maximum efficacy and minimum adverse effects. We provide insight into the recent advancement in epitope-based vaccines and the procedure to design the modern or next-generation vaccine. The synergy between the computational screening of vaccine candidates and experimental verification to assess the immunogenic potential improves decision-making and reduces the cost and time of the development of new therapeutics