Dark Proteome of Newly Emerged SARS-CoV-2 in Comparison with Human and Bat Coronaviruses

Rajanish Giri; Taniya Bhardwaj; Meenakshi Shegane; Bhuvaneshwari R. Gehi; Prateek Kumar; Kundlik Gadhave

The periodical outbreaks of pathogens worldwide always remind the lack of suitable drugs or vaccines for proper cure or treatment. In 2003, nearly 750 deaths were reported due to the SARS outbreak in more than 24 countries. But this time, the outbreak of Wuhan's novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has quickly surpassed this number, indicating more causalities soon. The lack of accurate information and ignorance of primary symptoms are major reasons, which cause many infection cases. Although efficient transmission from human to human is confirmed, the actual reasons for fast SARS-CoV-2 spread are still unknown, but some assumptions were made by researchers and Chinese authorities. The fast spread of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 pandemic, and associated introduction of quarantine also have made major impacts on economy and education worldwide due to several restrictions, such as limited transportation, restrained or frozen traveling, halted attendance of mass events, the introduction of distant teaching and learning, etc. Due to advancements in sequencing techniques, the full genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was made available in a few days of the first infection report from Wuhan, China. However, massive subsequent research needs to be done to identify the actual cause of SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and to design suitable treatment in the coming future. Certain possibilities can be explored with the available information. The mutational pressure study on this virus will be very interesting to see if this virus transforms from Bat SARS to Human SARS to SARS-CoV-2. More in-depth experimental studies using molecular and cell biology techniques to establish structurefunction relationships are required for a better understanding of the functioning of SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Additionally, based on the sequence homology and information on proteinprotein interactions, the associated viral and host proteins should be explored, for finding means suitable for limiting replication, maturation, and ultimately pathogenesis of this virus. Although structural biology techniques (so-called rational drug design) can be used in drug development utilizing high throughput screening of compounds virtually or experimentally, the applicability of these techniques is limited by the presence of intrinsic disorder in target proteins. Therefore, the thorough disorder analysis of three coronaviruses conducted in this study will help structural biologists to rationally design experiments keeping this information in mind. author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.