Cross-attention PHV: Prediction of human and virus protein-protein interactions using cross-attention-based neural networks.

Viral infections represent a major health concern worldwide. The alarming rate at which SARS-CoV-2 spreads, for example, led to a worldwide pandemic. Viruses incorporate genetic material into the host genome to hijack host cell functions such as the cell cycle and apoptosis. In these viral processes, protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play critical roles. Therefore, the identification of PPIs between humans and viruses is crucial for understanding the infection mechanism and host immune responses to viral infections and for discovering effective drugs. Experimental methods including mass spectrometry-based proteomics and yeast two-hybrid assays are widely used to identify human-virus PPIs, but these experimental methods are time-consuming, expensive, and laborious. To overcome this problem, we developed a novel computational predictor, named cross-attention PHV, by implementing two key technologies of the cross-attention mechanism and a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN). The cross-attention mechanisms were very effective in enhancing prediction and generalization abilities. Application of 1D-CNN to the word2vec-generated feature matrices reduced computational costs, thus extending the allowable length of protein sequences to 9000 amino acid residues. Cross-attention PHV outperformed existing state-of-the-art models using a benchmark dataset and accurately predicted PPIs for unknown viruses. Cross-attention PHV also predicted human-SARS-CoV-2 PPIs with area under the curve values >0.95. The Cross-attention PHV web server and source codes are freely available at https://kurata35.bio.kyutech.ac.jp/Cross-attention_PHV/ and https://github.com/kuratahiroyuki/Cross-Attention_PHV, respectively.

A 'Multiomic' Approach of Saliva Metabolomics, Microbiota, and Serum Biomarkers to Assess the Need of Hospitalization in Coronavirus Disease 2019.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has overwhelmed the treatment capacity of the health care systems during the highest viral diffusion rate. Patients reaching the emergency department had to be either hospitalized (inpatients) or discharged (outpatients). Still, the decision was taken based on the individual assessment of the actual clinical condition, without specific biomarkers to predict future improvement or deterioration, and discharged patients often returned to the hospital for aggravation of their condition. Here, we have developed a new combined approach of omics to identify factors that could distinguish coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) inpatients from outpatients. METHODS: Saliva and blood samples were collected over the course of two observational cohort studies. By using machine learning approaches, we compared salivary metabolome of 50 COVID-19 patients with that of 270 healthy individuals having previously been exposed or not to SARS-CoV-2. We then correlated the salivary metabolites that allowed separating COVID-19 inpatients from outpatients with serum biomarkers and salivary microbiota taxa differentially represented in the two groups of patients. RESULTS: We identified nine salivary metabolites that allowed assessing the need of hospitalization. When combined with serum biomarkers, just two salivary metabolites (myo-inositol and 2-pyrrolidineacetic acid) and one serum protein, chitinase 3-like-1 (CHI3L1), were sufficient to separate inpatients from outpatients completely and correlated with modulated microbiota taxa. In particular, we found Corynebacterium 1 to be overrepresented in inpatients, whereas Actinomycetaceae F0332, Candidatus Saccharimonas, and Haemophilus were all underrepresented in the hospitalized population. CONCLUSION: This is a proof of concept that a combined omic analysis can be used to stratify patients independently from COVID-19.

Artificial intelligence in clinical care amidst COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.

The worldwide health crisis caused by the SARS-Cov-2 virus has resulted in>3 million deaths so far. Improving early screening, diagnosis and prognosis of the disease are critical steps in assisting healthcare professionals to save lives during this pandemic. Since WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic, several studies have been conducted using Artificial Intelligence techniques to optimize these steps on clinical settings in terms of quality, accuracy and most importantly time. The objective of this study is to conduct a systematic literature review on published and preprint reports of Artificial Intelligence models developed and validated for screening, diagnosis and prognosis of the coronavirus disease 2019. We included 101 studies, published from January 1st, 2020 to December 30th, 2020, that developed AI prediction models which can be applied in the clinical setting. We identified in total 14 models for screening, 38 diagnostic models for detecting COVID-19 and 50 prognostic models for predicting ICU need, ventilator need, mortality risk, severity assessment or hospital length stay. Moreover, 43 studies were based on medical imaging and 58 studies on the use of clinical parameters, laboratory results or demographic features. Several heterogeneous predictors derived from multimodal data were identified. Analysis of these multimodal data, captured from various sources, in terms of prominence for each category of the included studies, was performed. Finally, Risk of Bias (RoB) analysis was also conducted to examine the applicability of the included studies in the clinical setting and assist healthcare providers, guideline developers, and policymakers.