An Overall Picture of SARS Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) Genome-Encoded Major Proteins: Structures, Functions and Drug Development

Abstract

A severe atypical pneumonia designated as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) by The World Health Organization broke out in China and menaced to more than other 30 countries between the end of the year 2002 and June of the year 2003. A novel coronavirus called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) has been recently identified as the etiological agent responsible for the infectious SARS disease. Based on extensively scientific cooperation and almost two-year's studies, remarkable achievements have been made in the understanding of the phylogenetic property and the genome organization of SARS-CoV, as well as the detailed characters of the major proteins involved in SARS-CoV life cycle. In this review, we would like to summarize the substantial scientific progress that has been made towards the structural and functional aspects of SARS-CoV associated key proteins. The progress focused on the corresponding key proteins' structure-based drug and vaccine developments has been also highlighted. The concerted and cooperative response for the treatment of the SARS disease has been proved to be a triumph of global public health and provides a new paradigm for the detection and control of future emerging infectious disease threats.

A Brief Review: The Z-curve Theory and its Application in Genome Analysis

“…Prophage [33], Me Tri virus [28], novel human coronaviruses NL63 and HKU1 [34], novel bat coronaviruses [35], bat coronaviruses 1A, 1B and HKU8 [36], novel human coronavirus [37] Protein-coding gene recognition a x, y, z, S ZCURVE_V [14], ZCURVE_CoV [15] SARS_CoV Various strains of SARS_CoV [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] Archaea Methanosarcina mazei [69], Halobacterium species NRC-1 [63], Methanocaldococcus jannaschii [68], Sulfolobus acidocaldarius [72], Haloferax volcanii [73], Desulfurococcus kamchatkensis [74], Thermococcus sibiricus [75], Sulfolobus islandicus [76] Bacteria Moraxella catarrhalis [79], Sorangium cellulosum [80], Microcystis aeruginosa [80], Cyanothece [81], Cupriavidus metallidurans [82], Azolla filiculoides [83], Variovorax paradoxus [18], Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis [84], [85], Orientia tsutsugamushi [86], Propionibacterium freudenreichii [87], Laribacter hongkongensis…”

“…It is noteworthy that ZCURVE 1.0 is especially suitable for genomes with high GC contents, e.g., GC content > 56% [12]. Likewise, ZCURVE_V and ZCURVE_CoV have been widely used for annotating protein-coding genes in newly sequenced genomes of viruses, coronaviruses [28,[33][34][35][36][37] and SARS coronaviruses [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53].…”

Recent Developments in Anti-Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Chemotherapy

“…E protein The envelope protein appears to act as a ion-channel protein [54]; putatively involved in viral budding and release [53,55] siRNA~4 µM [56] (Orf5) M protein Membrane protein [55]; surface protein responsible for viral assembly and budding;…”

NMR assignment of the domain 513–651 from the SARS-CoV nonstructural protein nsp3

“…The SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is the etiological agent of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a type of pneumonia with a high mortality rate (Peiris et al 2003). To date there is no vaccine or effective treatment for SARS, and intense ongoing work is focused on the structural and functional characterization of the proteins encoded by the SARS-CoV genome (Bartlam et al 2005;Chen et al 2006). The viral RNA genome is translated into polyproteins, which are long polypeptide chains that are subsequently processed by virus-encoded proteases to produce a manifold of functional proteins important for the life-cycle of the virus (Prentice et al 2004;Schiller et al 1998).…”