Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics https://doi.org/10.1007/s10989-019-09949-6 Harnessing Bioinformatic Approaches to Design Novel Multi‑epitope Subunit Vaccine Against Leishmania infantum Pejman Hashemzadeh 1  · Vajihe Ghorbanzadeh 2  · Hamed Esmaeil Lashgarian 1  · Farnaz Kheirandish 1,3  · Hassan Dariushnejad 1,2 Received: 24 August 2019 / Revised: 8 October 2019 / Accepted: 10 October 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract Kala-azar or visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is the most important vector-borne protozoan disease and a life-threatening problem in the globe due to the lack of ideal vaccines or drugs. Recent advances in immunoinformatics and bioinformatics could be a promising approach in designing a new recombinant vaccine for VL treatment. In this study, a new recombinant vaccine against Leishmania infantum (L. infantum) designed by the computational method and Gp63, Hsp70 and Kmp11 antigens from L. infantum were selected as potential immunodominant epitopes. RpfE and RpfB from Mycobacterium tuberculosis used as adjuvants for enhancing vaccine immunogenicity. bioinformatic tools were used to analyze diferent aspects of the designed vaccine including, protein–protein interactions, B cell epitopes, MHC class I and II epitopes, the amino acid composition of multi-epitope vaccine, immunogenic behavior, and 3D homology modeling. This study revealed that our designed recombinant vaccine is able to induce responses of the immune system against L. infantum, and may be helpful to control VL infection, after appropriate in vitro and in vivo immunological assays. Keywords Multi-epitope vaccine · Visceral leishmaniasis · Leishmania infantum · Immunoinformatics Introduction After malaria, leishmaniasis is the most important vector- borne protozoan disease. More than 20 known species of Leishmania parasites responsible for this tropical infection and parasite transmitted to humans by female phlebotomine sandfies (Stevanovic et al. 2018). Since over 350 million people are at risk in endemic regions (98 countries) with more than 12 million cases annual incidence, this complex disease has become one of the major worldwide health prob- lem (Dias et al. 2018). Dependent upon both the parasite species and the host’s immune response Leishmaniasis manifest in clinic in three phenotypes include visceral, cutaneous, and mucocutaneous leishmaniasis. Among these clinical forms, visceral leish- maniasis (VL) (or kala-azar) is the most severe one, caused by L. infantum and L. donovani and responsible for 90% mortality rate if left untreated (Uliana et al. 2018). Visceral leishmaniasis is prevalent in the tropical regions and respon- sible for 20,000–40,000 deaths across the world each year (Catta-Preta and Mottram 2018; Dias et al. 2018). Leishmania is an obligate intracellular parasite. After penetration of the promastigote (the fagellated form) into the skin, parasite proliferates inside the cytoplasm of mac- rophages and transformed to amastigote (the round intracel- lular form). The infection afects the spleen, liver, lymph nodes, bone marrow, and other organs. In next step, parasites escape from microbicides mechanisms of neutrophils and * Hassan Dariushnejad dariushnejad@gmail.com Pejman Hashemzadeh Pejman7genetian@gmail.com Vajihe Ghorbanzadeh vghorbanzadeh@gmail.com Hamed Esmaeil Lashgarian hamedesmaiili@gmail.com Farnaz Kheirandish kheirandish81@yahoo.com 1 Department of Medical Biotechnology, Faculty of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran 2 Razi Herbal Medicines Research Center, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran 3 Department of Medical Parasitology and Mycology, School of Medicine, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, Khorramabad, Iran