Selenium – associated gene signatures within the SARS-CoV-2 – host genomic interaction interface

Vavougios, George D.

A recent study by Sies and Parnham expanded on the therapeutic potential of Epselen, an organoselenium compound, as an inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2’s main protease. In this study, using an unbiased, data driven bioinformatic screening of two independently extracted SARS-CoV-2 – induced host gene signatures confirms Selenium as a potential drug candidate. This pathway based approach adds transcriptomic evidence complimenting the protein-centered rationale expanded on by the authors. Given that aside from host – protein interactions, antisense transcript mRNA-mRNA interactions have been demonstrated to occur at selenocysteine related insertions in RNA viruses, transcriptomic-level evidence offer unique insight into viral lifecycles. Furthermore, the pathways identified from these two selenium associated signatures provide further insight into the perturbations of selenium metabolism introduced by SARS-CoV-2 during its lifecycle.