title: Evidence for a vast peptide overlap between West Nile virus and human proteomes.
abstract: The primary amino acid sequence of West Nile virus (WNV) polyprotein, GenBank accession number M12294, was analyzed by computional biology. WNV is a mosquito-borne neurotropic flavivirus that has emerged globally as a significant cause of viral encephalitis in humans. Using pentapeptides as scanning units and the perfect peptide match program from PIR International Protein Sequence Database, we compared the WNV polyprotein and the human proteome. WNV polyprotein showed significant sequence similarities to a number of human proteins. Several of these proteins are involved in embryogenesis, neurite outgrowth, cortical neuron branching, formation of mature synapses, semaphorin interactions, and voltage dependent L-type calcium channel subunits. The biocomputional study suggest that common amino acid segments might represent a potential platform for further studies on the neurological pathophysiology of WNV infections.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies and Pharmacological Sciences, University of Bari, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Capone
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pagoni
authors.forename: Antonella Pesce
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Delfino
authors.forename: Darja
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kanduc
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D030562:Databases, Protein; D006801:Humans; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D020543:Proteome / Q000737:chemistry*; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D014902:West Nile virus / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D009842:Oligopeptides; D020543:Proteome; D014764:Viral Proteins