ISSN: 2577-4360
Authors: Wenfa Ng*
Biological molecules are related to one another. Such evolutionary connectedness means that we could probe the origins of one molecule based on some characteristics (usually sequence) of a related molecule. Such conceptual tools have been codified as sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree software used by bioinformatician on a daily basis to search for species relationships at the sequence level. This work uses sequence alignment to probe for the relatedness of surface proteins of SARS and SARS-CoV-2, with the aim of gaining an understanding of possible sequence and structure conservation of the surface proteins (S, N, E, and M) and their implications in clinical diagnostics and treatment. Results revealed high level of similarity of all surface protein amino acid sequence for both SARS and SARS-CoV-2. This implies that this set of surface proteins have evolved under tight constraints, and may be selected for by a common natural host of both coronaviruses. In addition, SARS and SARS-CoV-2, as judged by sequence conservation of surface proteins, are related viruses possibly belonging to the same virus family. Given that sequence conservation implies similar protein structure, diagnostics and treatment developed for SARS should be readily translatable to SARS-CoV-2 if the protein in question is a viral surface protein. Of biggest surprise in the work is the revelation that E and M protein exhibit very high level of sequence conservation across SARS and SARSCoV-2 which speaks of their essentiality to the pathogenesis and function of the coronaviruses. Such conservation implies that both proteins may be targets for therapeutic and diagnostic development in anticipation of future coronavirus outbreak from the same virus family. Overall, sequence alignment is used in this work to reveal the high level of conservation of surface proteins across SARS and SARS-CoV-2 at the amino acid sequence level. Such conservation implies relatedness between the two coronaviruses, but more importantly, point to avenues for which the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries could exploit for diagnostic and therapeutic development.
Keywords: Sequence Alignment; Sequence Conservation; SARS; SARS-Cov-2; Evolutionary Relationship
