IDENTIFICATION OF POTENTIAL T CELL EPITOPES OF H1N1 INFLUENZA VIRUS FOR VACCINE DESIGN - AN IMMUNOINFORMATICS AND MOLECULAR DOCKING APPROACH

H1N1 Influenza virus, otherwise known as swine flu is one of the subtypes of influenza A virus. The H1N1 flu spreads rapidly from human to human while sneezing and coughing. It was announced as a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2009. Although the influenza virus has some effective vaccines, the H1N1 subtype of the virus does not have a low-cost and safest vaccine. The peptide-based vaccine design does not involve the in vitro culturing of the pathogenic virus and also, it is a cost and time-saving technology. This study aims at identifying the potential epitope through the available immunoinformatics tools. Among the 11 proteins of H1N1, approximately 22 epitopes are predicted. Two of these epitopes showed good interactions with various MHC alleles. Hence the 3D structure of the epitopes and HLA protein were built. The best two epitopes LSTASSWSY and VSFNQNLEY are from the structural proteins of the H1N1 virus namely Haemagglutinin and Neuraminidase. The surface proteins are the best targets for vaccine design. The molecular docking result and pose view of the interaction of HLA and the epitopes suggests LSTASSWSY as the more stable and potential epitope for vaccine designing since it has a good binding affinity -7.71 kcal/mol and also has both hydrogen and hydrophobic interactions with the HLA protein. This study can hopefully be a lead for the vaccine design for the H1N1 virus.