Translational adaptation of human viruses to the tissues they infect

Xavier Hernandez-Alias; Martin Schaefer; Luis Serrano

Overall, this is the first systematic analysis establishing a link between the codon usage of human viruses and the translational efficiency of their tissue of infection. This correspondence is particularly observed in early viral proteins, while late counterparts benefit from the tRNA reprogramming that underlies the process of infection. We therefore envision the development of ad hoc gene therapies specifically targeting the tissue of interest. Table 2 for full TCGA cancer type names. See also Extended Data Fig. 1 . The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.06.027557 doi: bioRxiv preprint influenza A virus. Center values within the violin plot represent the median. Using a two-tailed Wilcoxon rank-sum test, only significant differences between viruses are shown: * (p <= 0.05), ** (p <= 0.01), *** (p <= 0.001), **** (p <= 0.0001). (B) Average RSEM expression of the corresponding entry receptors of the viruses: MERS-CoV binds to DPP4 35 , SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 bind to ACE2 or BSG with priming by the protease TMPRSS2 36,37 , influenza A virus binds to sialic acids, which are synthesised by the enzymes ST3GAL4 and ST6GAL1 34 . RSEM receptor expression is re-scaled between 0 and 1 among all tissues, being 1 the tissue with highest expression. Refer to Sup. Table 3 Table 6 ). Center values within the violin plot represent the median. Using a two-tailed Wilcoxon rank-sum test, only significant differences are shown: * (p <= 0.05), ** (p <= 0.01), *** (p <= 0.001), **** (p <= 0.0001).