Indian Scientists Develop Universal Vaccine Candidate That Can Combat All Coronavirus Variants

This is the world's first vaccine designed to cope with all the Coronaviridae family viruses at a single time, claimed the Indian research team.

A team of scientists from the Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar has designed a potential universal vaccine, which they claim would be effective against all variants of coronavirus.

Called AbhiSCoVac, the scientists believe that their vaccine candidate could be a potent remedy to combat all the virulent forms of coronaviruses.

According to the researchers, they have employed immunoinformatic approaches to design a multi-epitope multi-target chimeric peptide that would be able to generate protective immunity against all six virulent members of the family hCoV-229E, hCoV-HKU1, hCoV-OC43, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV as well as SARS-CoV-2. AbhiSCoVac was found to be highly stable, antigenic and immunogenic, they stated.

Their research "Designing AbhiSCoVac - A single potential vaccine for all 'corona culprits': Immunoinformatics and immune simulation approaches" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Molecular Liquids.

The research team include Abhigyan Choudhury and Suprabhat Mukherjee from Kazi Nazrul University and Parth Sarthi Sen Gupta, Saroj Kumar Panda, and Malay Kumar Rana from IISER, Bhubaneshwar.

Coronaviruses responsible for three major pandemics

According to the researchers, the coronaviridae family has generated highly virulent viruses, leading to three major pandemics in last two decades: SARS in 2002, MERS outbreak in 2012 and the current COVID-19 crisis.

Warning against the possibility of future outbreaks that could be a threat to mankind, the scientists underscored the need for a universal vaccine that can deter all these pathogenic viruses in a single shot.

An abstract of the publication is available in the National Library of Medicine. It stated, "Notably, the spike proteins present in all these viruses function as credible PAMPs that are majorly sensed by human TLR4 receptors. Our study aims to recognize the amino acid sequence(s) of the viral spike proteins that are precisely responsible for interaction with human TLR4 and to screen the immunogenic epitopes present in them to develop a multi-epitope multi-target chimeric vaccine against the coronaviruses."

"Molecular design of the constructed vaccine peptide is qualified in silico; additionally, molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies collectively reveal strong and stable interactions of the vaccine construct with TLRs and MHC receptors. In silico immune simulation of the vaccine indicates highly immunogenic nature of the vaccine construct without any allergic response," it added.

This vaccine is one of a kind

Speaking to PTI, Choudhary said that they are moving towards the production of the vaccine, which has been developed using computational methods, and it would be followed by testing.

"This vaccine is one of a kind. No other vaccine in the world has been designed to cope with all the Coronaviridae family viruses at a single time," he told the news agency

When they simulated injection of the vaccine into virtual patients, it was found to be highly capable of protecting the recipient from the viruses, Choudhary added.