Spike protein amino acid variants increased miRNA binding and hence reduced virulence of SARS-CoV-2 in Jordan, Middle East (preprint)

ABSTRACT

Initial epidemiological studies inform the central COVID-19 disease prophet. Some papers have been studying miRNA and viral RNA interaction target predictions over the past few years. In this work, via the miRDB database, we determined the target scores of predicted miRNA to bind with the ss-RNA of SARS-CoV-2 in general and spike gene in specific. Our predicted miRNA targets of the ss-RNA of SARS-CoV-2 might destabilize and hence inhibit the ss-RNA translation of SARS-CoV-2 and prevent viral replication that has been established by more than 80% of asymptomatic infected cases in Jordan due to host miRNA interactions. In respiratory epithelial cells, the high scoring miRNAs prediction covers the RNA from 5' to 3' that explain successful antiviral defenses against ss-RNA of SARS-CoV-2 and lead to new nucleotide deletion mechanisms. The exciting finding here that the substitution 1841A>G at the viral genomic RNA level or the D614G at spike protein level showed a change in the predicted miRNA sequence and an increase in the target score (from 91 to 92) (hsa-miR-4793-5p to hsa-miR-3620-3p).