Designing of Complex Multi-epitope Peptide Vaccine Based on Omps of Klebsiella pneumoniae: An In Silico Approach

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a hospital-acquired pathogen that leads to various infections. There is a great interest in developing an efficient Klebsiella vaccine and epitope-based vaccines may provide a hopeful choice. Outer membrane proteins (Omps) of gram-negative bacteria play an essential role in bacterial pathogenicity; therefore, they are ideal candidates for vaccine development against these pathogens. This study proposed an in silico approach by assembling consensus and high ranked epitopes of OmpW, OmpA, OmpF, OmpC and OmpX of K. pneumoniae and other virulence Enterobacteriaceae to induce multi-epitopic responses against these pathogens. Two vaccine constructs of discontinuous (conformational) B cell and linear CD4(+) T cell epitopes of the Omps were designed. The three-dimensional structure of the B cell construct was successfully modeled and validated. Discontinuous B cell epitopes predictions of the B cell construct showed that the predicted epitopes are admissibly in common with total inserted discontinuous epitopes result in stimulation an efficient humoral immune response. In order to improve the immunogenicity, the size of the constructs was increased by multiplication of the epitopes and incorporation of sequence tags. Both constructs were found to be soluble, non-allergen and free of much posttranslational modification that could be effective on immunogenicity.