A Bioinformatics approach to designing a Zika virus vaccine

The Zika virus infections have reached epidemic proportions in the Latin American countries causing severe birth defects and neurological disorders. While several organizations have begun research into design of prophylactic vaccines and therapeutic drugs, computer assisted methods with adequate data resources can be expected to assist in these measures to reduce lead times through bioinformatics approaches. Using 60 sequences of the Zika virus envelope protein available in the GenBank database, our analysis with numerical characterization techniques and several web based bioinformatics servers identified four peptide stretches on the Zika virus envelope protein that are well conserved and surface exposed and are predicted to have reasonable epitope binding efficiency. These peptides can be expected to form the basis for a nascent peptide vaccine which, enhanced by incorporation of suitable adjuvants, can elicit immune response against the Zika virus infections.