Samra Obai Mohamed, Yassir A. Almofti, Khoubieb Ali Abd Elrahman
Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is hemorrhagic viral disease caused by CCHF Virus (CCHFV) with case fatality rate of up to 40%. This study aimed to design multi epitopes vaccine from glycoprotein M to elicit immune response. Strains of CCHFV were used to construct a phylogenetic tree. IEDB tools were exploited to predict B and T cell epitopes and calculation of the population coverage of each predicted epitope. The vaccine protein comprises 599 amino acids and was potentially antigenic and non-allergic. Physical and chemical properties showed that the vaccine was stable, contains aliphatic side chains, hydrophilic and with thermal stability. The vaccine demonstrated no homology with human proteins. Secondary and tertiary structures of the vaccine were predicted, refined and validated by rampage plot. Structural errors were assessed by proSA web server that showed a Z-score of -2.97. The vaccine was soluble in comparison to solubility of E. coli proteins. Molecular docking with TLR4 provided binding energy of -1135.5 Kcal/mol and -1301.4 Kcal/mol for chain A and chain B, respectively. In silico cloning demonstrated the potential clonability of the vaccine protein in pET28a (+) vector resulting in efficient expression and translation. Clinical trial analysis via in vivo and in vitro studies is required.