Version 1
: Received: 2 October 2021 / Approved: 5 October 2021 / Online: 5 October 2021 (11:26:34 CEST)
Version 2
: Received: 12 October 2021 / Approved: 14 October 2021 / Online: 14 October 2021 (13:08:25 CEST)
How to cite:
Romeu, A.R. SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV Share the Furin Site CGG-CGG Genetic Footprint. Preprints2021, 2021100080. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202110.0080.v1
Romeu, A.R. SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV Share the Furin Site CGG-CGG Genetic Footprint. Preprints 2021, 2021100080. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202110.0080.v1
Romeu, A.R. SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV Share the Furin Site CGG-CGG Genetic Footprint. Preprints2021, 2021100080. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202110.0080.v1
APA Style
Romeu, A.R. (2021). SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV Share the Furin Site CGG-CGG Genetic Footprint. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202110.0080.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Romeu, A.R. 2021 "SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV Share the Furin Site CGG-CGG Genetic Footprint" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202110.0080.v1
Abstract
At present, the polybasic furin cleavage site on the spike glycoprotein of the SARS-CoV-2 isstill a missing link. Remarkably, the two arginine residuesthisof site are encoded by the CGG arginine codon, which is rare in Betacoronavirus proteins. Arginine dimers are common at viral furin sites, but are not CGG-CGG encoded. The question is: Is that genetic footprint, encoding arginine pairs, unique to the SARS-CoV-2? To address the issue, using Perl scripts, here I dissect in detail the NCBI Virus database in order to report the arginine dimers that exist in Betacoronavirus proteins. As main result, a set of Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV) (isolates: camel/Nigeria/NVx/2016, host: Camelus dromedarius)havethe CGG-CGG encoded arginine pair in the spike proteinpolybasic furin cleavage site. In addition, CGG-CGG encoded arginine pairs werealso found inthe orf1ab polyprotein from HKU9and HKU14 Betacoronavirus, as well as, in thenucleocapsid phosphoprotein fromfew SARS-CoV-2 isolates. To quantify the presence probability of CGG-CGG arginine-arginine in Betacoronavirus, a First-Order Markov Chain was defined. It is highly unlikely to find it in betacoronaviruses wildlife, but it is there. Collectively, results shed light on recombination as origin of thevirusCGG-CGG arginine dimerinthe S1/S2 cleavage site.
Computer Science and Mathematics, Mathematical and Computational Biology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
