title: Massive peptide sharing between viral and human proteomes.
abstract: Thirty viral proteomes were examined for amino acid sequence similarity to the human proteome, and, in parallel, a control of 30 sets of human proteins was analyzed for internal human overlapping. We find that all of the analyzed 30 viral proteomes, independently of their structural or pathogenic characteristics, present a high number of pentapeptide overlaps to the human proteome. Among the examined viruses, human T-lymphotropic virus 1, Rubella virus, and hepatitis C virus present the highest number of viral overlaps to the human proteome. The widespread and ample distribution of viral amino acid sequences through the human proteome indicates that viral and human proteins are formed of common peptide backbone units and suggests a fluid compositional chimerism in phylogenetic entities canonically classified distantly as viruses and Homo sapiens. Importantly, the massive viral to human peptide overlapping calls into question the possibility of a direct causal association between virus-host sharing of amino acid sequences and incitement to autoimmune reactions through molecular recognition of common motifs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Bari, Bari 70126, Italy. d.kanduc@biologia.uniba.it
authors.forename: Darja
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kanduc
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stufano
authors.forename: Guglielmo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lucchese
authors.forename: Anthony
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kusalik
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D030562:Databases, Protein; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010455:Peptides / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D020543:Proteome; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D010455:Peptides; D020543:Proteome; D014764:Viral Proteins