Design of peptide-based epitope vaccine and further binding site scrutiny led to groundswell in drug discovery against Lassa virus.

Lassa virus (LASV) is responsible for an acute viral hemorrhagic fever known as Lassa fever. Sequence analyses of LASV proteome identified the most immunogenic protein that led to predict both T-cell and B-cell epitopes and further target and binding site depiction could allow novel drug findings for drug discovery field against this virus. To induce both humoral and cell-mediated immunity peptide sequence SSNLYKGVY, conserved region 41-49 amino acids were found as the most potential B-cell and T-cell epitopes, respectively. The peptide sequence might intermingle with 17 HLA-I and 16 HLA-II molecules, also cover 49.15-96.82% population coverage within the common people of different countries where Lassa virus is endemic. To ensure the binding affinity to both HLA-I and HLA-II molecules were employed in docking simulation with suggested epitope sequence. Further the predicted 3D structure of the most immunogenic protein was analyzed to reveal out the binding site for the drug design against Lassa Virus. Herein, sequence analyses of proteome identified the most immunogenic protein that led to predict both T-cell and B-cell epitopes and further target and binding site depiction could allow novel drug findings for drug discovery field against this virus.