In Silico Designing and Optimization of Loa22 Protein in Pathogenic Leptospira Serovars for Use in Recombinant Vaccine

مهدی قره‌خانی ¹ ( واحد لاهیجان، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، لاهیجان ، ایران )
محمد فائزی قاسمی ² ( گروه میکروبیولوژی، واحد لاهیجان، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی، گیلان، ایران )
پژواک خاکی ³ ( بخش میکروب شناسی، موسسه تحقیقات واکسن و سرم سازی رازی، سازمان تحقیقات، آموزش و ترویج کشاورزی، کرج، ایران )
مجید اسمعیلی زاد ⁴ ( بخش تحقیق و توسعه، موسسه تحقیقات واکسن و سرم سازی رازی، سازمان تحقیقات، آموزش و ترویج کشاورزی، کرج، ایران )
مجید تبیانیان ⁵ ( بخش ایمنی شناسی، موسسه تحقیقات واکسن و سرم سازی رازی، سازمان تحقیقات، آموزش و ترویج کشاورزی، کرج، ایران )

Submited date : 2023-11-15 Accepted date : 2025-04-14

Keywords: Leptospirosis, Leptospira, Protein Loa22, Bioinformatics, Immunoinformatics,

Abstract :

Leptospirosis, caused by pathogenic Leptospira species, is a globally prevalent zoonotic disease with significant public health implications. Developing an effective vaccine against leptospirosis remains a challenge due to the complex nature of the pathogen and its outer membrane proteins (OMPs). The outer membrane protein Loa22 has been proposed as a potential vaccine due to its immunogenic properties. The study aims to explore the application of bioinformatics and immunoinformatics in studying the Loa22 protein, elucidating its structural and functional characteristics, and assessing its potential as a vaccine candidate for leptospirosis. Based on the findings of multiple sequence alignment, Loa22 protein showed more than 99% convergence in different strains of pathogenic leptospira. The evaluation of different features of this protein showed it to be an immunogenic, non-toxic, and non-allergenic antigen that can induce immune responses against Leptospira infection. Also, based on the predictions, it was shown that Loa22 protein is a stable structure, soluble, and has antigenic areas of T and B cell epitopes, which are conserved in all pathogenic serovars and can be used in the design of the recombinant vaccine or the use of its immunogenic epitopes in the combination with the immunogen epitopes of other conserved proteins of Leptospira outer membrane should be used in the design of multi-epitope vaccine.

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