{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,29]],"date-time":"2026-08-29T13:48:30Z","timestamp":1788011310883,"version":"build-2784847793"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,6]],"date-time":"2024-10-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1728172800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Researchers Supporting Project Number","award":["RSPD2024R632"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RSPD2024R632"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Medicina"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background and Objectives: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus called Middle East respiratory syndrome. In the current study, immunoinformatics studies were applied to design an epitope-based vaccine construct against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. Materials and Methods: In this study, epitopes base vaccine construct was designed against MERS using immunoinformatics approach. Results: In this approach, the targeted proteins were screened, and probable antigenic, non-allergenic, and good water-soluble epitopes were selected for vaccine construction. In vaccine construction, the selected epitopes were joined by GPGPG linkers, and a linear multi-epitope vaccine was constructed. The vaccine construct underwent a physiochemical property analysis. The 3D structure of the vaccine construct was predicted and subjected to refinement. After the refinement, the 3D model was subjected to a molecular docking analysis, TLRs (TLR-3 and TLR-9) were selected as receptors for vaccine construct, and the molecular docking analysis study determined that the vaccine construct has binding ability with the targeted receptor. Conclusions: The docking analysis also unveils that the vaccine construct can properly activate immune system against the target virus however experimental validation is needed to confirm the in silico findings further.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/medicina60101632","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,7]],"date-time":"2024-10-07T06:23:18Z","timestamp":1728282198000},"page":"1632","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Design of an Epitope-Based Vaccine Against MERS-CoV"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"60","author":[{"given":"Taghreed N.","family":"Almanaa","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Botany and Microbiology, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,10,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"480","article-title":"Update: Severe respiratory illness associated with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)\u2014Worldwide, 2012\u20132013","volume":"62","author":"Gastanaduy","year":"2013","journal-title":"Morb. 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