Coronavirus envelope protein: current knowledge (original) (raw)
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Molecular biology of coronaviruses: current knowledge
Heliyon, 2020
The emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, marked the third introduction of a highly pathogenic coronavirus into the human population in the twenty-first century. The constant spillover of coronaviruses from natural hosts to humans has been linked to human activities and other factors. The seriousness of this infection and the lack of effective, licensed countermeasures clearly underscore the need of more detailed and comprehensive understanding of coronavirus molecular biology. Coronaviruses are large, enveloped viruses with a positive sense single-stranded RNA genome. Currently, coronaviruses are recognized as one of the most rapidly evolving viruses due to their high genomic nucleotide substitution rates and recombination. At the molecular level, the coronaviruses employ complex strategies to successfully accomplish genome expression, virus particle assembly and virion progeny release. As the health threats from coronaviruses are constant and long-term, understanding the molecular biology of coronaviruses and controlling their spread has significant implications for global health and economic stability. This review is intended to provide an overview of our current basic knowledge of the molecular biology of coronaviruses, which is important as basic knowledge for the development of coronavirus countermeasures.
Molecular Basis of Coronavirus Virulence and Vaccine Development
Coronaviruses, 2016
Virus vaccines have to be immunogenic, sufficiently stable, safe, and suitable to induce long-lasting immunity. To meet these requirements, vaccine studies need to provide a comprehensive understanding of (i) the protective roles of antiviral B and T-cell-mediated immune responses, (ii) the complexity and plasticity of major viral antigens, and (iii) virus molecular biology and pathogenesis. There are many types of vaccines including subunit vaccines, whole-inactivated virus, vectored, and live-attenuated virus vaccines, each of which featuring specific advantages and limitations. While nonliving virus vaccines have clear advantages in being safe and stable, they may cause side effects and be less efficacious compared to live-attenuated virus vaccines. In most cases, the latter induce longlasting immunity but they may require special safety measures to prevent reversion to highly virulent viruses following vaccination. The chapter summarizes the recent progress in the development of coronavirus (CoV) vaccines, focusing on two zoonotic CoVs, the severe acute respiratory syndrome CoV (SARS-CoV), and the Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV, both of which cause deadly disease and epidemics in humans. The development of attenuated virus vaccines to combat infections caused by highly pathogenic CoVs was largely based on the identification and characterization of viral virulence proteins that, for example, interfere with the innate and adaptive immune response or are involved in interactions with specific cell types, such as macrophages, dendritic and epithelial cells, and T lymphocytes, thereby modulating antiviral host responses and viral pathogenesis and potentially resulting in deleterious side effects following vaccination.
Emerging Human Coronaviruses: Molecular Biology and Vaccine Challenges
Journal of Virology and Viral Diseases, 2021
COVID-19 is a new public health crisis caused by the novel respiratory pathogen SARS-CoV-2. It is one of the most significant pandemic events in recent history. The SARS-CoV-2 Beta corona virus was transmitted to humans in the end of 2019 by unknown intermediary host from bats in Wuhan, Hubei province (China). It marked the third major coronavirus source of disaster in the 21stcentury.The three last severe respiratory tract infections caused by the SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 caused high human mortality. Viral genomic sequencing and investigations and the development of advanced vaccine strategies are expected to give us more information on these emerging pathogens and controlling them in the future. The aim of this review is to summarize updated information regarding these emerging human coronaviruses to understand their molecular and structural biology, transmissions and potential vaccine approaches actually developed against the SARS-CoV-2.
The Molecular Biology of Coronaviruses
Advances in Virus Research, 1983
Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre-including this research content-immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
TURKISH JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES
The family Coronaviridae is a monophyletic cluster in the order Nidovirales members of which are enveloped with a positive sense, single-stranded RNA genome and measures, on average, 30 kilobases [9]. Orthocoronavirinae subfamily contains 4 genera (Alphacoronavirus, Betacoronavirus, Gammacoronavirus, and Deltacoronavirus), and SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 belong to genus betacoronavirus [10,11,12]. The coronavirus (CoV) has a single-stranded, nonsegmented RNA genome of positive polarity, and its virion contains 4 major structural proteins: the nucleocapsid (N) protein, the transmembrane (M) protein, the envelope (E) protein, and the spike (S) protein (Figure 1). However, with some coronaviruses, the full ensemble of structural proteins is not necessary for the forming of a complete, infectious virion; additional proteins may be encoded with overlapping compensatory functions [10,11,12].
2020
SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19, a new seventh human corona virus, has out-broken in Wuhan, China since 31st December 2019, and quickly escalated to take the form of pandemic which killed many human beings throughout almost all countries across continents. The rapidity of its transmission from human to human is far greater than all previous human corona viruses which came into existence like SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, etc. The nucleotide sequence of SARS-CoV-2 (isolates Wuhan-Hu-1) is 29,875 bp in ss-RNA. Symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infected pneumonia include from asymptomatic to high fever and/or respiratory illnesses. Coronavirus virion (spherical/round /elliptical in shape) consists of three parts- outer membrane or envelope, nucleocapsid and genome (RNA). SARS-CoV-2 was shown to use receptor, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) for attachment to the cells through its surface spike (S) protein (S1), and the virion enters into the host cell through two routes- direct membrane fusion and endocytotic...
Chapter eight - Molecular basis of Coronavirus virulence and vaccine development
2020
Virus vaccines have to be immunogenic, sufficiently stable, safe, and suitable to induce long-lasting immunity. To meet these requirements, vaccine studies need to provide a comprehensive understanding of (i) the protective roles of antiviral B and T-cell-mediated immune responses, (ii) the complexity and plasticity of major viral antigens, and (iii) virus molecular biology and pathogenesis. There are many types of vaccines including subunit vaccines, whole-inactivated virus, vectored, and live-attenuated virus vaccines, each of which featuring specific advantages and limitations. While nonliving virus vaccines have clear advantages in being safe and stable, they may cause side effects and be less efficacious compared to live-attenuated virus vaccines. In most cases, the latter induce long-lasting immunity but they may require special safety measures to prevent reversion to highly virulent viruses following vaccination. The chapter summarizes the recent progress in the development o...
The Human Coronaviruses (HCoVs) and the Molecular Mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 Infection
2020
In humans, coronaviruses can cause infections of the respiratory system, with damage of varying severity depending on the virus examined: ranging from mild or moderate upper respiratory tract diseases, such as the common cold, to pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death. Human coronaviruses known to date, common throughout the world, are seven. The most common - and least harmful - ones were discovered in the 1960s and cause a common cold. Others, more dangerous, were identified in the early 2000s and cause more severe respiratory tract infections. Among these the SARS-CoV, isolated in 2003 and responsible for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (the so-called SARS), which appeared in China in November 2002, the Coronavirus 2012 (2012-nCoV) cause of the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome from Coronavirus (MERS), which exploded in June 2012 in Saudi Arabia, and actually SARS-CoV-2. On December 31, 2019, a new Coronavirus strain was reported in Wu...