In silico design and in vitro expression of novel multiepitope DNA constructs based on HIV-1 proteins and Hsp70 T-cell epitopes

Objectives Epitope-driven vaccines carrying highly conserved and immunodominant epitopes have emerged as promising approaches to overcome human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection. Methods Two multiepitope DNA constructs encoding T cell epitopes from HIV-1 Gag, Pol, Env, Nef and Rev proteins alone and/or linked to the immunogenic epitopes derived from heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) as an immunostimulatory agent were designed. In silico analyses were applied including MHC-I and MHC-II binding, MHC-I immunogenicity and antigen processing, population coverage, conservancy, allergenicity, toxicity and hemotoxicity. The peptide-MHC-I/MHC-II molecular docking and cytokine production analyses were carried out for predicted epitopes. The selected highly immunogenic T-cell epitopes were then used to design two multiepitope fusion constructs. Next, prediction of the physicochemical and structural properties, B cell epitopes, and constructs-toll-like receptors (TLRs) molecular docking were performed for each construct. Finally, the eukaryotic expression plasmids harboring totally 12 cytotoxic T Lymphocyte (CTL) and 10 helper T lymphocytes (HTL) epitopes from HIV-1 proteins ( i.e., pEGFP-N1- gag-pol-env-nef-rev ), and linked to 2 CTL and 2 HTL epitopes from Hsp70 ( i.e., pEGFP-N1- hsp70-gag-pol-env-nef-rev ) were generated and transfected into HEK-293 T cells for evaluating the percentage of multiepitope peptides expression using flow cytometry and western blotting. Results The designed DNA constructs could be successfully expressed in mammalian cells. The expression rates of Gag-Pol-Env-Nef-Rev-GFP and Hsp70-Gag-Pol-Env-Nef-Rev-GFP were about 56–60% as the bands of ~ 63 and ~ 72 kDa confirmed in western blotting, respectively. Conclusion The combined in silico/ in vitro methods indicated two multiepitope constructs can be produced and used as probable effective immunogens for HIV-1 vaccine development.