Zhu Feng's team at the School of Pharmacy of Zhejiang University published an article in Nucleic Acids Research on coronavirus RNA...

Coronaviruses have caused three global pandemics over the past 20 years, with each step in its lifecycle relying on molecular interactions
between the virus and its host.
Among them, the interaction between coronavirus RNA and host protein (IVRHP) is very unique compared with other molecular interactions, and is a frontier hot spot in recent research by virologists (Cell.
184: 2394-2411.
e16, 2021； Cell Res.
32: 9-23, 2022）
。 These studies provide key information for in-depth understanding of the translation and replication process of coronavirus and help the host to build a defense system against viral infection, and it is urgent to further construct a "panorama of the interaction between viral RNA and host proteins" that can be used to assist the development of new anti-coronavirus drugs.

In October 2022, Professor Zhu Feng of Zhejiang University, Professor Han Lianyi of Fudan University and Professor Tao Lin of Hangzhou Normal University collaborated to publish the construction of "coronavirus RNA" in the important international biomedical journal "Nucleic Acids Research" and CovInter, the world's first data platform to describe this type of molecular interaction.

The platform describes more than 10,000 pairs of IVRHP interactions, which is of great significance
for the discovery of new types of interactions.
The CovInter platform comprehensively describes the key roles of thousands of host proteins in viral infection and immunity, systematically quantifies significant differences in expression and signaling pathway initiation of these host proteins before and after infection, and provides core regulatory information
on the interaction of approved, clinically researched drugs with these key host proteins (and their phosphorylation).
Given the persistent and serious threat posed by the coronavirus, CovInter fills a critical gap in the molecular panorama of virus-host interactions, facilitating the development or repositioning
of new antiviral drugs.

The conservatism of the interaction between coronavirus RNA and host proteins is highly different

The genetic mutation of the virus will lead to the acquisition or loss of the interaction relationship between the virus and the host, which will significantly change the transmission rate and case fatality rate of the virus, and it is necessary to carry out a systematic assessment
of the conservative level of the IVRHP interaction between virus variants.
Therefore, in this study, Professor Zhu Feng's team systematically mapped the IVRHP interaction network for all coronavirus RNAs (as shown below).

The red circle represents the RNA of a specific virus strain, the green circle represents the different host proteins, and the orange circle represents the RNA
outside the strain.
The larger the diameter of the circle, the more molecules it represents interacting with this molecule, which reflects the role
of this molecule in the life cycle of the virus.
This study found that the conservatism of the interaction between coronavirus RNA and host proteins is highly different
.

To demonstrate the conservancy of IVRHPs across coronaviruses, a hierarchy chart was also drawn to show all IVRHPs relationships
for a particular protein.
For a protein, a purple line shows its interaction with viral RNA
.
This is important to
show how conservative various coronaviruses are on IVRHP.

The School of Pharmacy, Zhejiang University, is the first signatory of this thesis, doctoral student Kurbanisha Amahong, Zhang Wei and Zhou Ying are the co-first authors of the paper, and Professor Zhu Feng of Zhejiang University, Professor Han Lianyi of Fudan University and Professor Tao Lin of Hangzhou Normal University are the co-corresponding authors
of this paper.
This research was supported
by the National Talent Program and the "Outstanding Youth Program" of the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province.

Original link: https://academic.
oup.
com/nar/advance-article/doi/10.
1093/nar/gkac834/6749548