Knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 epitopes and population HLA types is important in the design of COVID-19 vaccines
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-1-2022
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused extensive loss of lives and economic hardship. In response, infectious disease experts and vaccine developers promptly responded by bringing forth candidate vaccines, some of which have been listed in the World Health Organization's Emergency Use Listing. Notwithstanding the diverse worldwide population genetics, the vaccines thus far developed are generic in nature for use worldwide. Differences in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) in different populations, variation of the T cell epitopes, and the propensity of SARS-CoV-2 genetic mutations left room for improvement of the vaccines. Here, we discussed the implications of COVID-19 vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection by taking into consideration SARS-CoV-2 mutations, T cell epitopes, risk factors, and current platforms of candidate vaccines based on the HLA types that are commonly present in Peninsular Malaysia Chinese, Indian, and Malay populations. The HLA types associated with protection against and susceptibility to severe SARS-CoV-2 infection were identified based on reported case-control and cohort studies. The relevance of including the non-spike SARS-CoV-2 proteins in the future COVID-19 vaccines is also highlighted. This review is meant to trigger researchers to acknowledge the importance of investigating the possible relationships between the HLA haplotype and the SARS-CoV-2 strains circulating in different populations.
Keywords
Infectious diseases, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, Vaccine, T cell epitopes, Human leukocyte antigens
Divisions
fac_med
Funders
Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia for niche area research under the Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICoE) program [MO002-2019]
Publication Title
Vaccines
Volume
10
Issue
10
Publisher
MDPI
Publisher Location
ST ALBAN-ANLAGE 66, CH-4052 BASEL, SWITZERLAND