Contriving multiepitope vaccine for breast cancer by targeting the estrogen receptor using in-silico method.

Breast cancer is an invasive cancer that arises either in ductal epithelial cells or lobules of the glandular tissues of the breast. The main culprit behind this misery in most cases is Estrogen receptor which allows binding of estrogen protein that helps in the proliferation, differentiation, and metastasis of breast cells. The present study designed multi-epitope B-cell stimulating vaccine by using estrogen receptor alpha as a template for epitope prediction. The predicted epitopes were checked for antigenicity, and toxicity using Vaxijen, Aller-Pred and Toxin-Pred. The final vaccine construct was used for the physicochemical prediction, In-silico immunosimulation, structure modeling and energy and structural refinement procedures followed by molecular docking with toll-like receptors and molecular dynamics. The obtained sequence of multi-epitope vaccine construct had adequate physiochemical and immunological properties. The structure constructed from the vaccine sequence had an appropriate secondary and 3-dimensional structure. The predicted 3D structure of the vaccine construct showed favorable interactions with toll-like receptors 1, 2, and 4, suggesting its potential to stimulate innate and adaptive immune responses. Our study proposes a promising vaccine candidate for breast cancer caused by the activity of estrogen receptor that can stimulate both innate and adaptive immune response to prevent the proliferation and progression.