Solvent Accessibility of Coronaviridae Spike Proteins through the Lens of Information Gain

Sarwan Ali, Babatunde Bello and Murray Patterson ()
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Sarwan Ali: Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA
Babatunde Bello: Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA
Murray Patterson: Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA

J, 2023, vol. 6, issue 2, 1-12

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has generated a renewed interest in the larger family of Coronaviridae, which causes a variety of different respiratory infections in a variety of different hosts. Understanding the mechanisms behind the ability of a family of viruses to spill over into different hosts is an ongoing study. In this work, we studied the relationship between specific amino acid sites and the solvent accessibility of the surface (or spike) protein of different Coronaviridae. Since host specificity hinges on the portion(s) of the protein that interfaces with the host cell membrane, there could be a relationship between information gain in specific amino acid sites and solvent accessibility. We found a connection between sites with high information gain and solvent accessibility within several major subgenera of Coronaviridae. Such a connection could be used to study other lesser-known families of viruses, which is desirable because information gain is much easier to compute when the number of sequences is large, as we show. Finally, we produced a visualization of the sequences within each major subgenus and discussed several regions of interest, as well as focused on some pairs of Coronaviridae hosts of interest.

Keywords: Coronaviridae; information gain; spike protein structure; solvent accessibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I10 I12 I13 I14 I18 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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