Archives of Hellenic Medicine

Last update:

13-Jan-2026

Arch Hellen Med, 43(2), March-April 2026, 258-262

ORIGINAL PAPER

In-silico prediction of VP2-specific B- and T-cell epitopes as potential vaccine targets
against the globally distributed human bocavirus 1

K. Goupou,¹ C. Hatzoglou,¹ K.I. Gourgoulianis,² S.G. Zarogiannis,¹ E. Rouka³ 1Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Thessaly, Biopolis, Larissa
²Department of Respiratory Medicine, School of Health Sciences, University of Thessaly, Biopolis, Larissa
³Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, University of Thessaly, Gaiopolis, Larissa, Greece

OBJECTIVE We aimed at predicting B- and T-cell epitopes in the capsid protein VP2 which has been identified as a potential vaccine candidate against human bocavirus 1 (HBoV1).

METHOD The VP2 sequence in FASTA format was obtained via the UniProt resource and the Phyre2 Protein Fold Recognition Server was used for 3D modeling. VP2 antigenicity was calculated by Vaxijen version 2.0. B-cell epitopes were predicted with the IEDB ElliPro tool. MHC class I and II epitopes were identified with the Vaxitop method of Vaxign. The MHC I epitopes were tested with IEDB's immunogenicity tool and MHC II binders with the IFNepitope server. Antigens' risk of allergenicity, toxicity, and autoimmunity triggering were tested via the AllerTOP version 2.0, Toxin Pred, and Peptide Match tools, respectively. Physicochemical properties were determined via Expasy ProtParam.

RESULTS Immunoinformatic analysis resulted in the identification of VP2-specific B- and T-cell epitopes fulfilling prerequisites for vaccine design.

CONCLUSIONS Our findings confirm the antigenicity of VP2 and indicate candidate B- and T-cell linear sequences suitable for in vitro validation.

Key words: Epitopes, Human bocavirus 1, Immunoinformatics, Respiratory infection, VP2.