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Background: The present pandemic COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2, a single-stranded positive-sense RNA virus from the Coronaviridae family Due to a lack of antiviral drugs, vaccines against the virus are urgently required Methods: In this study, validated computational approaches were used to identify peptide-based epitopes from six structural proteins having antigenic properties The Net-CTL 1 2 tool was used for the prediction of CD8(+) T-cell epitopes, while the robust tools Bepi-Pred 2 and LBtope was employed for the identification of linear B-cell epitopes Docking studies of the identified epitopes were performed using HADDOCK 2 4 and the structures were visualized by Discovery Studio and LigPlot(+) Antigenicity, immunogenicity, conservancy, population coverage and allergenicity of the predicted epitopes were determined by the bioinformatics tools like VaxiJen v2 0 server, the Immune Epitope Database tools and AllerTOP v 2 0, AllergenFP 1 0 and ElliPro Results: The predicted T cell and linear B-cell epitopes were considered as prime vaccine targets in case they passed the requisite parameters like antigenicity, immunogenicity, conservancy, non-allergenicity and broad range of population coverage Among the predicted CD8+ T cell epitopes, potential vaccine targets from surface glycoprotein were;YQPYRVVVL, PYRVVVLSF, GVYFASTEK, QLTPTWRVY, and those from ORF3a protein were LKKRWQLAL, HVTFFIYNK Similarly, RFLYIIKLI, LTWICLLQF from membrane protein and three epitopes viz;SPRWYFYYL, TWLTYTGAI, KTFPPTEPK from nucleocapsid phosphoprotein were the superior vaccine targets observed in our study The negative values of HADDOCK and Z scores obtained for the best cluster indicated the potential of the epitopes as suitable vaccine candidates Analysis of the 3D and 2D interaction diagrams of best cluster produced by HADDOCK 2 4 displayed the binding interaction of leading T cell epitopes within the MHC-1 peptide binding clefts On the other hand, among linear B cell epitopes the majority of potential vaccine targets were from nucleocapsid protein, viz;(59-)HGKEDLKFPRGQGVPINTNSS PDDQIGYYRRATRRIRGGDGKMKDLS(-105), (227-)LNQLE SKMSGKGQQQQGQT VTKKSAAEASKKPRQKRTATK(-266), (3-)DNGPQNQRNAPRITFGGP(-20), (29-)GERSG ARSKQRRPQGL(-45) Two other prime vaccine targets, (370-)NSASFSTFKCYGVSPTK LNDLCFTNV-395 and (260-)AGAAAYYVGYLQPRT(-274) were identified in the spike protein The potential B-cell conformational epitopes were predicted on the basis of a higher protrusion index indicating greater solvent accessibility These conformational epitopes were of various lengths and belonged to spike, ORF3a, membrane and nucleocapsid proteins Conclusions: Taken together, eleven T cell epitopes, seven B cell linear epitopes and ten B cell conformational epitopes were identified from five structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 using advanced computational tools These potential vaccine candidates may provide important timely directives for an effective vaccine against SARS-CoV-2
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