Cell Death Discov . New Consensus pattern in Spike CoV-2: potential implications in coagulation process and cell-cell fusion

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Cell Death Discov


. 2020 Nov 27;6:134.
doi: 10.1038/s41420-020-00372-1. eCollection 2020.
New Consensus pattern in Spike CoV-2: potential implications in coagulation process and cell-cell fusion


Silvia Buonvino ¹ , Sonia Melino ¹



Affiliations

• PMID: 33262894
• PMCID: PMC7691694
• DOI: 10.1038/s41420-020-00372-1

Abstract

Coagulopathy and syncytial formation are relevant effects of the SARS-CoV-2 infection, but the underlying molecular mechanisms triggering these processes are not fully elucidated. Here, we identified a potential consensus pattern in the Spike S glycoprotein present within the cytoplasmic domain; this consensus pattern was detected in only 79 out of 561,000 proteins (UniProt bank). Interestingly, the pattern was present in both human and bat the coronaviruses S proteins, in many proteins involved in coagulation process, cell-cell interaction, protein aggregation and regulation of cell fate, such as von Willebrand factor, coagulation factor X, fibronectin and Notch, characterized by the presence of the cysteine-rich EGF-like domain. This finding may suggest functional similarities between the matched proteins and the CoV-2 S protein, implying a new possible involvement of the S protein in the molecular mechanism that leads to the coagulopathy and cell fusion in COVID-19 disease.

Keywords: Infectious diseases; Viral proteins.