Widespread and ample peptide overlapping between HCV and Homo sapiens proteomes.
Alignment of protein sequences is fundamental in analyzing homology, evolutionary events and functional relationships. Searching for the epitopic peptide platform underlying hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and autoimmune phenomena, we have used sequence-sequence peptide matching to compare the HCV polyprotein sequence to the human proteome. The following results were obtained: (1) pentamers from HCV polyprotein have a widespread and high level of similarity to a large number of human proteins (19,605 human proteins, that is 57.6% of the human proteome); (2) remarkable similarity between the two proteomes persists even using longer peptide motifs as probes for identity scanning; (3) only a limited number of HCV pentameric fragments have no similarity to the human host, so representing molecular sequence signatures of the virus. We conclude that the widespread sharing of numerous perfect exact matches between HCV and human proteomes might explain HCV persistence in humans.
Kusalik
Anthony
A
Department of Computer Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.
Bickis
Miķelis
M
Lewis
Christopher
C
Li
Ying
Y
Lucchese
Guglielmo
G
Marincola
Francesco M
FM
Kanduc
Darja
D
D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D020543:Proteome / Q000032:analysis*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
D010455:Peptides; D020543:Proteome