Immunoinformatics and molecular dynamics studies to predict T-cell-specific epitopes of four fimbriae antigens.

() is a causative agent of severe infections in humans. There is no publically available vaccine for infections yet. Here, using comprehensive immunoinformatics methods, T-cell-specific epitopes of four type 1 fimbriae antigens of were predicted and evaluated as potential vaccine candidates. Both CD8+ (class I) and CD4+ (class II) T-cell-specific epitopes were predicted and the epitopes similar to human proteome were excluded. Subsequently, the windows of class-II epitopes containing class-I epitopes were determined. The immunogenicity, IFN-γ production and population coverage were also estimated. Using the 3D structure of HLA and epitopes, molecular docking was carried out. Two best epitopes were selected for molecular dynamics studies. Our prediction and analyses resulted in the several dominant epitopes for each antigen. The docking results showed that all selected epitopes can bind to their restricted HLA molecules with high affinity. The molecular dynamics results indicated the stability of system with minimum possible deviation, suggesting the selected epitopes can be promising candidates for stably binding to HLA molecules. Altogether, our results suggest that the selected T-cell-specific epitopes of fimbriae antigens, particularly the two epitopes confirmed by molecular dynamics, can be applied for vaccine development. However, the and studies are required to authenticate the results of the present study.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.