In silico investigation of the viroporin E as a vaccine target against SARS-CoV-2.

ABSTRACT

Viroporins, integral viral membrane ion channel proteins, interact with host-cell proteins deregulating physiological processes and activating inflammasomes. Severity of COVID-19 might be associated with hyperinflammation, thus we aimed at the complete immunoinformatic analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 viroporin E, P0DTC4. We also identified the human proteins interacting with P0DTC4 and the enriched molecular functions of the corresponding genes. The complete sequence of P0DTC4 in FASTA format was processed in 10 databases relative to secondary and tertiary protein structure analyses and prediction of optimal vaccine epitopes. Three more databases were accessed for the retrieval and the molecular functional characterization of the P0DTC4 human interactors. The immunoinformatics analysis resulted in the identification of 4 discontinuous B-cell epitopes along with 1 linear B-cell epitope and 11 T-cell epitopes which were found to be antigenic, immunogenic, nonallergen, nontoxin, and unable to induce autoimmunity thus fulfilling prerequisites for vaccine design. The functional enrichment analysis showed that the predicted host interactors of P0DTC4 target the cellular acetylation network. Two of the identified host-cell proteins - BRD2 and BRD4 - have been shown to be promising targets for antiviral therapy. Thus, our findings have implications for COVID-19 therapy and indicate that viroporin E could serve as a promising vaccine target against SARS-CoV-2. Validation experiments are required to complement these in silico results.