Development of a Multi-Epitope Vaccine Candidate to Combat SARS-CoV-2 and Dengue Virus Co-Infection through an Immunoinformatics Approach

Saurav Mandal ^1,2* Waribam Pratibha Chanu ^3* Kalimuthusamy Natarajaseenivasan ^1,2*

• ¹ Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi, India
• ² Regional Medical Research Center, Dibrugarh, India
• ³ Gautam Buddha University, Greater Noida, India

We are pleased to submit the revised manuscript entitled "Development of a Multi-Epitope Vaccine Candidate to Combat SARS-CoV-2 and Dengue Virus Co-Infection through an Immunoinformatics Approach." We sincerely apologize for the delay in responding to the reviewer comments and submitting the revised version. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this process.We have carefully addressed all the review questions raised by the reviewers. The changes and updates are highlighted in blue in the revised manuscript for clarity. Additionally, we have elaborated on the concerns raised regarding structural predictions, physicochemical properties, and immune simulation comparisons, as well as incorporated literature on SARS-CoV-2 and dengue co-infection. We believe these revisions significantly strengthen the manuscript and address all the concerns comprehensively.In this study, we utilized four antigens from SARS-CoV-2 and the dengue virus to design a multi-epitope vaccine candidate. Our findings suggest that this vaccine has promising potential in combating co-infection by these two viruses, which is particularly critical in regions where these infections overlap. The results of our immunoinformatics approach highlight its utility in advancing multiepitope vaccine design.We believe that this manuscript aligns with the scope of Frontiers in Immunology as it contributes to the rapidly growing field of computational vaccine design and immunology. We hope it will inspire new research and provide meaningful insights for the development of innovative solutions against co-infections.We sincerely thank you and the reviewers for the constructive feedback, which has been invaluable in improving the quality of the manuscript. We look forward to your positive response and would be delighted to address any additional concerns if needed.Thank you for your time and consideration.