Publication Alert! IALH Faculty Affiliate Hosna Jabbari (Computer Science) has published an article with IALH Student Affiliate Alison Ziesel entitled “Identification of conserved and evolving RNA secondary structures in SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses” for CASCON ’21: Proceedings of the 31st Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering.
Abstract:
RNA viruses encode not only gene products but also secondary structures that impose an additional level of control on the expression of encoded genes. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, is an RNA virus and is known to have important secondary structures that may impact viral infectivity. We employ a pipeline developed for identifying RNA structures in vertebrates to identify secondary structures in SARS-CoV-2 and related viral genomes to identify potentially conserved structures among them. Candidate structures will then be assessed in SARS-CoV-2 samples isolated from patients globally to measure mutational rates within these structures: lower than average mutation suggests selective pressure to preserve that structure in virulent SARS-CoV-2. Alternatively higher than average mutation implies evolutionary drift, meaning those structures may represent a test laboratory of sorts for novel structures in SARS-CoV-2. This work in progress has identified 40 regions of potentially conserved RNA structure using a modified version of the vertebrate pipeline. These structures may currently perform critical functions and be under evolutionary pressure, or may be currently under little evolutionary pressure and as such free to mutate into novel structures with new implications for SARS-CoV-2 disease.
To read the full article, see https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/3507788.3507817