Introduction Emerging and re-emerging infectious pathogens are major threats to global public health. With the continued rise in the number of annual reported cases in Nigeria, the genomic diversity of the virus, as well as the expanding geography and species distribution of its reservoir hosts, Lassa fever has become a foremost endemic neglected zoonosis in Nigeria, with no available vaccine for its prevention globally. The present study aimed to develop a cross protective, multiepitope-based recombinant DNA Vaccine against Lassa Virus strains circulating in Nigeria. Methods Several Multiple humoral and cell-mediated epitopes were mapped from each consensus sequences of a total of 69 glycoprotein and 67 nucleoprotein sequences of the Lassa virus (LASV) strains across lineage I, II, III and VI circulating in Nigeria and characterized using high-throughput in silico bioinformatics tools to construct a putative LASV vaccine candidate, and the constructed candidate was evaluated in silico for its structural and physicochemical properties. Results A total of 4, 10 and 3 CTL, HTL and linear B-cell non-toxic, non-allergenic and highly antigenic epitopes, respectively, were mapped and used for the construction of the vaccine candidate. The chimeric LASV vaccine had good expression levels in procaryotic and eucaryotic cells, was thermostable, hydrophobic, non-allergenic, non-toxigenic and highly antigenic. Also, the putative candidate elicited both humoral and cell-mediated immune response, in addition to its induction of interferon gamma after a prime and boost dose-regime. Furthermore, the putative vaccine candidate was able to adapt to the codon usage of E. coli and Cavia porcellus (Guinea Pig), and successfully cloned in pVAX1 vector. Conclusion This study was able to design and construct a high quality LASV vaccine candidate from the circulating strains in Nigeria, preparatory to further downstream in vitro and in vivo validations and Proof of Concept experiments.
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