In silico veritas? Potential limitations for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development based on T-cell epitope prediction
Sandra Silva-Arrieta, Philip Goulder, Christian Brander
Abstract
The development of a vaccine able to prevent infection or severe disease course of SARS-CoV-2 is a priority to stem the current COVID-19 pandemic and to be better prepared for future flare-ups. To accelerate T-cell immunogen design, many current approaches are employing epitope prediction strategies. Although such approaches have great merit, it is also important that unbiased approaches to characterizing the T-cell response to SARS-CoV-2 are incorporated into vaccine design, in order to generate a comprehensive picture of the total virus-specific T-cell response and to define correlates of protective immunity against the virus.
Topics & Concepts
In silicoVirologyEpitopeSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)Computational biologyBiologyCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)2019-20 coronavirus outbreakMedicineImmunologyGeneticsAntibodyInfectious disease (medical specialty)PathologyDiseaseOutbreakGenevaccines and immunoinformatics approachesSARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 ResearchHepatitis C virus research