Authors: A1. Jenica Aparicio

Affiliations: Personalised Medicine Centre, School of Medicine, Ulster University, Derry-Londonderry, BT48 7JL.

Background/ Introduction: “Cutavirus (CuV), a recently identified human protoparvovirus associated with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and other serious diseases, underscores the urgent need for vaccine development. Reverse Vaccinology offers an efficient alternative to traditional approaches by predicting antigenic epitopes directly from pathogen genomic data. This study implemented an immuno-informatics pipeline to design peptide-based vaccine candidates targeting the highly antigenic VP2 capsid protein of CuV, which serves as the primary target for neutralising antibodies. 

Material & Methods: Three linear peptide epitopes were selected based on predicted antigenicity, allergenicity, and conservation across 192 non-redundant protoparvovirus VP2 sequences, and population coverage.

Results: Antigenicity scores from VaxiJen v2.0 ranged from 0.5947 to 1.1311, all exceeding the probable antigen threshold. All epitopes were classified as non-allergenic by AllerTOP V2.0, indicating favourable immunogenicity profiles and low cross-reactivity risk. Conservation analysis revealed that Epitope 3 provided near-complete coverage (98.96%) at 30% identity, while the combined epitope set achieved 61.72% global population coverage, with regional peaks in North America (70.99%) and Europe (67.57%). 

Conclusion: These findings support a multi-epitope vaccine approach targeting VP2 to achieve broad protection against Cutavirus. From a translational medicine perspective, this computationally designed vaccine candidate could be rapidly progressed to experimental validation, potentially offering a preventative strategy against a virus with oncogenic potential. However, empirical validation through molecular docking and in vivo testing remains essential before clinical application to confirm peptide-MHC binding and functional immunogenicity.”