Molecular features similarities between SARS-CoV-2, SARS, MERS and key human genes could favour the viral infections and trigger collateral effects

Abstract

AbstractIn December 2019 rising pneumonia cases caused by a novel β-coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) occurred in Wuhan, China, which has rapidly spread worldwide causing thousands of deaths. The WHO declared the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern therefore several scientists are dedicated to the study of the new virus. Since human viruses have codon usage biases that match highly expressed proteins in the tissues they infect and depend on host cell machinery for replication and co-evolution, we selected the genes that are highly expressed in the tissue of human lungs to perform computational studies that permit to compare their molecular features with SARS, SARS-CoV-2 and MERS genes. In our studies, we analysed 91 molecular features for 339 viral genes and 463 human genes that consisted of 677873 codon positions. Hereby, we found that A/T bias in viral genes could propitiate the viral infection favoured by a host dependant specialization using the host cell machinery of only some genes. The envelope protein E, the membrane glycoprotein M and ORF7 could have been further benefited by a high rate of A/T in the third codon position. Thereby, the mistranslation or de-regulation of protein synthesis could produce collateral effects, as a consequence of viral occupancy of the host translation machinery due tomolecular similarities with viral genes. Furthermore, we provided a list of candidate human genes whose molecular features match those of SARS-CoV-2, SARSand MERS genes, which should be considered to be incorporated into genetic population studies to evaluate thesusceptibility to respiratory viral infections caused by these viruses. The results presented here, settle the basis for further research in the field of human genetics associated with the new viral infection, COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 and for the development of antiviral preventive methods.