Abstract:
Newcastle disease virus is a single stranded RNA virus of negative polarity, is the main
causative agent of NDV infection in chickens. Despite the availability of commercial live
attenuated vaccine, the outbreaks are common in poultry industry causing huge economic
losses. The main factors responsible for the vaccine ineffectiveness are; high mutation
rate, genetic variability of the virus and other factors causing immunosuppression in
birds. In this study, computational and immune-informatics approach was used to design
a multi- epitope vaccine based on the sequences reported from Pakistan. The 8 prioritized
epitopes were predicted from structural proteins; HN and F of NDV. These non-host
homologous epitopes were capable of inducing strong B cell, T cell and IFN- γ response
against the virus. Furthermore, the epitopes were arranged on the basis of epitope -
epitope interaction analysis and linked with each other through GPGPG linkers. An
adjuvant (CTB) was added at the N terminal to enhance the immunogenicity of the
construct. Construct was then modeled, refined and evaluated using online tools.
Significant docking score signal out towards great interaction between vaccine construct
and TLR receptors, thus enabling the vaccine to induce TLR activation which will be
followed by an amplified immune response against the virus. These results show that the
proposed vaccine construct can induce a strong innate and adaptive immune response
against NDV in chickens, however, experimental validation will be necessary to confirm
its potential. In future, this study can be utilized in finding genetic diversity among NDV
strains reported globally from different regions of the world and can also be helpful in
detection of genetic determinants associated vaccine resistance in vaccinated chickens.
