Preprints from MedRxiv and BioRxiv - COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2

Headlines
__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________


____________________________________________________________________________

Quantitative Biology > Biomolecules

COVID-19 e-print

Important: e-prints posted on arXiv are not peer-reviewed by arXiv; they should not be relied upon without context to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information without consulting multiple experts in the field.

[Submitted on 13 May 2020]

In silico comparison of spike protein-ACE2 binding affinities across species; significance for the possible origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus

Sakshi Piplani, Puneet Kumar Singh, David A. Winkler, Nikolai Petrovsky

The devastating impact of the COVID19 pandemic caused by SARS coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV2) has raised important questions on the origins of this virus, the mechanisms of any zoonotic transfer from exotic animals to humans, whether companion animals or those used for commercial purposes can act as reservoirs for infection, and the reasons for the large variations in susceptibilities across animal species. Traditional lab-based methods will ultimately answer many of these questions but take considerable time. In silico modeling methods provide the opportunity to rapidly generate information on newly emerged pathogens to aid countermeasure development and also to predict potential future behaviors. We used a structural homology modeling approach to characterize the SARSCoV2 spike protein and predict its binding strength to the human ACE2 receptor. We then explored the possible transmission path by which SARSCoV2 might have crossed to humans by constructing models of ACE2 receptors of relevant species, and calculating the binding energy of SARSCoV2 spike protein to each. Notably, SARSCoV2 spike protein had the highest overall binding energy for human ACE2, greater than all the other tested species including bat, the postulated source of the virus. This indicates that SARSCoV2 is a highly adapted human pathogen. Of the species studied, the next highest binding affinity after human was pangolin, which is most likely explained by a process of convergent evolution. Binding of SARSCoV2 for dog and cat ACE2 was similar to affinity for bat ACE2, all being lower than for human ACE2, and is consistent with only occasional observations of infections of these domestic animals. Overall, the data indicates that SARSCoV2 is uniquely adapted to infect humans, raising questions as to whether it arose in nature by a rare chance event or whether its origins lie elsewhere.

Comments:	Paper and supplementary data combined in one single pdf file
Subjects:	Biomolecules (q-bio.BM); Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE); Quantitative Methods (q-bio.QM)
Cite as:	arXiv:2005.06199 [q-bio.BM]
	(or arXiv:2005.06199v1 [q-bio.BM] for this version)

Bibliographic data

[Enable Bibex (What is Bibex?)]

Submission history

From: Nikolai Petrovsky [view email]
[v1] Wed, 13 May 2020 08:24:58 UTC (5,835 KB)

_________________________________________________________________________

bioRxiv is receiving many new papers on coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.   A reminder: these are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or be reported in news media as established information.

COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv

___________________________________________________

Collection : COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv
_______________________________________________________________


_______________________________________________________________


In Brief - COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 preprints from medRxiv and bioRxiv
____________________________________________________________________ -