Towards Protein Structure and Functional Analysis in Coronavirus and Therapeutic Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), Middle-East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are three coronaviruses that cross over the species barrier, leading to severe health problems. In 2002, Guangdong province of China reported SARS-CoV that then spread to five continents, resulting in millions infected and hundreds of deaths. MERS-CoV emerged in the Arabian Peninsula in 2012, and transferred to 27 countries affecting ∼2494 people and causing 858 deaths [4,5]. In late December 2019, a native enduring outbreak of anonymous-origin pneumonia was identified in Wuhan (Hubei, China) that was shortly confirmed to be caused by a novel coronavirus termed SARS-CoV-2, later named by WHO as COVID-19 on 11 February 2020. Like the previous SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 is a member of the Betacoronavirus genus. Along with this novel strain, there are currently seven distinct strains of human coronaviruses (HCoVs), including, 229E and NL63 strains of HCoVs (Alphacoronaviruses), OC43, HKU1, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 HCoVs (Betacoronaviruses). The ongoing outbreak has subsequently spread to 219 countries globally, with millions of confirmed cases and reported deaths. In general, COVID-19 is an acute disease, but can lead to deadly complications, with a 2% case fatality rate. However, this mortality rate is lower than those of SARS and MERS, which have respective mortality rates of 10% and 36% according to WHO.

HCoVs are 30,000bp long, single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses that code for proteins like nucleocapsid (N), matrix (M), envelope (E), and spike (S) protein. These proteins make the virus structure and are thus grouped as structural proteins. The second group are non-structural proteins, which include proteases (nsp3 and nsp5) and RdRp (nsp12). Understanding the structure and function of SARS-CoV-2 proteins is important from a therapeutic perspective.  

Papers focusing on aspects including but not limited to the following are welcome for submission to this Special Issue:

• Computational and experimental studies of coronavirus family virus proteins’ structure and function;
• Therapeutic evaluation of coronavirus family virus proteins in perspective drug and vaccine design;
• Evolutionary analysis of coronavirus family virus proteins;
• Mutational analysis of coronavirus family virus proteins;

Machine learning and artificial intelligence in coronavirus family virus protein structure and function analysis. 

Dr. Sajjad Ahmad
Dr. Muhammad Khurram
Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qamar
Guest Editors

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• coronavirus
• SARS-CoV-2
• vaccines
• drugs
• bioinformatics
• machine learning
• artificial intelligence
• experimental studies