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Oxford University Press - PMC COVID-19 Collection logoLink to Oxford University Press - PMC COVID-19 Collection
. 2020 May 6:btaa285. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btaa285

COVID-2019 associated overexpressed Prevotella proteins mediated host-pathogen interactions and their role in coronavirus outbreak

Abdul Arif Khan b1,, Zakir Khan b2
Editor: Arne Elofsson
PMCID: PMC7373214  PMID: 32374823

Abstract

Motivation

The outbreak of COVID-2019 initiated at Wuhan, China has become a global threat by rapid transmission and severe fatalities. Recent studies have uncovered whole genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 (causing COVID-2019). In addition, lung metagenomic studies on infected patients revealed overrepresented Prevotella spp. producing certain proteins in abundance. We performed host-pathogen protein-protein interaction analysis between SARS-CoV-2 and overrepresented Prevotella proteins with human proteome. We also performed functional overrepresentation analysis of interacting proteins to understand their role in COVID-2019 severity.

Results

It was found that over-expressed Prevotella proteins can promote viral infection. As per the results, Prevotella proteins, but not viral proteins are involved in multiple interactions with NF-kB, which is involved in increasing clinical severity of COVID-2019. Prevotella may have role in COVID-2019 outbreak and should be given importance for understanding disease mechanisms and improving treatment outcomes.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.


Articles from Bioinformatics are provided here courtesy of Oxford University Press

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