IIT Mandi team compares chaotic proteins of the COVID-19 virus through computational studies

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The Indian Institute of Technology Mandy Research Team, in collaboration with researchers at the Commonwealth University of Virginia and the University of South Florida (USA), is using computational tools to identify viral proteomes called intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDPRs). I understand the important part. Today, numerous research groups are competing over time to decipher the COVID-19 virus to find a cure for the devastating pandemics that have paralyzed our world.

The research team is headed by Dr. Rajanishi Giri, an assistant professor at the IIT Mandy School of Basic Science. The results of this study were recently published in Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. His research papers include Dr. Rajanishhiri, his researchers Tanya Birdwari, Minakshi Shegane, Bhubaneshwari R. Gehi, Pratekkumar, Kundrick Gadherb, and American scientist Christopher J Oldfield. , Commonwealth University of Virginia, and Dr. Vladimir N. Uversky at the University of South Florida.

The COVID-19 virus consists essentially of RNA, a genetic molecule surrounded by an envelope made of lipids and proteins. When the virus enters the host, it overcomes the host defenses and inserts its RNA into the host cell. The virus then hijacks the host cell machinery and uses the viral RNA to produce viral proteins in a process called “translation.” Infected cells begin to produce toxic viral proteins, causing various conditions and symptoms. It is known that proteins provide both structural and functional features to an organism, and exogenous (viral) proteins can take over the function of human cells.

“In COVID-19, RNA is first translated into protein and exerts a wide range of functions. Since protein functions depend on both ordered and disordered regions, It’s important to consider the whole proteome in light of both,” explains Dr. Giri. A set of proteins or proteomes contains both ordered and disordered regions of proteins.

Dr. Gili, who describes the research, said: “Inherently disordered proteins (IDPs) and intrinsically disordered protein regions (IDPRs) have recently been found to play important roles in a variety of biological processes. It’s getting a lot of attention.” IDP and IDPR are strongly correlated with viral pathogenicity, and understanding the structure and function of COVID-19 can help find ways to mitigate the effects of infection. Both structural and non-structural aspects of proteins are fundamental, and their knowledge is of paramount importance in understanding the etiology of viruses. You can use computational tools to investigate trends in proteins and regions that may or may not form structures.

“We investigated the chaotic aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 proteome. We used a complementary set of computational methods to check the prevalence of IDPR in proteins and to investigate disorder-related functions and disorder-based It highlights the binding motif, which is known as a molecular recognition function,” says Gili. Studies have shown a key role for IDPR in the maturation of individual proteins.

The team discovered that many of these proteins contain a disordered binding motif. Regarding the implications of their findings, Dr. Gili states: , As well as interactions with host proteins in different physiological conditions.”

In addition, “the process of rational drug design is currently limited because it largely ignores the presence of endogenous disorders of the target protein. Understanding the structure of these regions in the COVID-19 proteome is important Valuable for structural biologists involved in high-throughput and structure-based screening for development.”

The IIT Mandi team also compared IDPR between closely related viruses, human SARS and bat SARS-like CoV. Such comparisons provide a better understanding of the evolutionary sequence and structural characteristics of viruses and their pathogenicity.

Researchers at IIT Mandi will conduct more detailed studies to establish structure-function relationships in order to better understand the function of the SARS-CoV-2 protein. “We are also currently conducting experiments to further investigate the disordered protein of SARS-CoV-2,” said Giri.