The miRNA COMPLEXES AGAINST CORONAVIRUSES SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV

Aizhan Rakhmetullina, Ivashchenko At, Aigul Akimniyazova, Dana Aisina, Anna Pyrkova

2020

Full text Open access: Gold Metadata (CSL-JSON)
DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-20476/v2
Data confidence 70 medium
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Abstract

Abstract Background: In the past twenty years humankind has effected from infections caused by SARS-CoV (severe acute respiratory syndrome), MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome) and SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses, which have caused significant harm to human health and resulted in high mortality. The possibility of using miRNA (mRNA-inhibiting RNA) to inhibit infections caused by the coronaviruses SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV has been shown. Methods: The MirTarget program determines the following characteristics of interaction between miRNAs and messenger RNAs (mRNAs): the start of the miRNA binding site on the mRNA; the locations of the miRNA binding sites in the 3'-untranslated region (3'UTR), 5'-untranslated region (5'UTR), or coding sequence (CDS); the interaction free energy (∆G, kJ/mole); and nucleotide interaction schemes between miRNAs and mRNAs.Results: Using bioinformatics approaches, completely complementary miRNA (cc-miRNA) complexes were predicted to be able to bind and inhibit the translation of coronavirus proteins and the replication of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV genomes. For complexes of seven completely complementary miRNA of SARS-CoV-2 (cc-miRc), seven completely complementary miRNA of SARS-CoV (cc-miRs), and eight completely complementary miRNA of MERS-CoV (cc-miRm), the interactions with the RNA genomes (gRNAs) of the corresponding coronaviruses was evaluated. The free energy of the interactions of cc-miRNAs with binding sites was significantly higher than the free energy of the interactions with other regions in gRNA, which ensures high selectivity of the binding of cc-miRNAs. Weak binding of cc-miRNAs to the mRNAs of 17508 human genes was shown, which suggests the absence of side effects of the cc-miRNAs in humans. A feature of this method is the simultaneous inhibition of translation and replication by several cc-miRNAs binding from the 5' end to the 3' end of gRNA. Conclusion: The use of several cc-miRNAs to suppress infections allows each of them to be used at a lower concentration to avoid side effects when one cc-miRNA is introduced into humans at a high concentration.