Multiepitope Construction as an Antigen Candidate for Zika Virus Diagnosis

• Main Author: Fauzani Azka / 10414007, Nabila
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/29447
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

<p align="justify">Zika Virus (ZIKV) caused microcephaly to a baby born from infected mothers and associated with Guillain-Barre syndrome in adult. Genome and structural similarity between ZIKV and other flavivirus, especially Dengue Virus, generated high cross-reactivity potential and resulted to an inaccurate ZIKV diagnosis. Multiepitope construction is capable to increase sensitivity and specificity of ZIKV diagnosis with the exposure of more than one epitopes at the same time. Therefore, the research was made to construct multiepitope as an antigen candidate for ZIKV diagnosis. Epitope candidates were analyzed from the Envelope protein of ZIKV using IEDB. E protein was chosen due to its location in the outer part of ZIKV and lower similarity with Dengue Virus. Alignment between E protein and 42 whole-genome ZIKV strains was executed and generate 95-100% similarity. Two chosen epitopes from E protein were combined into a multiepitope using protein linker and the solubility of the multiepitope was analyzed. DNA sequence was constructed from multiepitope protein and inserted to expression vector pET32b(+) to be expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). Multiepitope protein expression was performed in various IPTG concentrations (0.01, 0.1, 0.5, 1, and 1.5 mM) and confirmed with SDS-PAGE. Results show that multiepitope could be constructed from 149SGMIVNDTGHETDENRAKVE168 and 273LEAEMDGAKGRLS285 region of ZIKV E protein. Optimum expression of multiepitope protein was obtained in 0.01 mM IPTG induction. This research determined that multiepitope could be constructed from E protein of ZIKV to be used as an antigen candidate for ZIKV diagnosis. <br /> <br /> Keywords: Diagnosis, E protein, IPTG Concentration, Multiepitope, Zika<p align="justify">