Design of cocktail peptide vaccine against Cytomegalovirus infection

Abstract

<strong><em>Objective(s):</em></strong><em>Human Cytomegalovirus</em> (HCMV) remains a major morbidity and mortality cause in immuno suppressed patients. Therefore, significant effort has been made towards the development of a vaccine. In this study, the expression of the pp65 and gB fusion peptides and Fc domain of mouse IgG2a as a novel delivery system for selective uptake of antigens by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in <em>Pichia pastoris</em> yeast system were studied. <strong><em>Materials and Method:</em></strong> In this study, four immune dominant sequences in pp65 protein and 3 immuno dominant sequences in gB protein were selected according to literature review. Peptide linker <em>-</em>GGGGS- was used for construction of fusion peptide. This fusion peptide was cloned in the pPICZαA expression vector and transfected into <em>P. pastoris</em> host cells. <strong><em>Results: </em></strong>Dot blot and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) techniques showed that a high level of pp65-gB-Fc fusion peptide was expressed. <strong><em>Conclusion:</em></strong> This CMV pp65-gB-Fc fusion peptide could be a promising candidate for the development of a novel peptide vaccine.