Sequence similarity between SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid and multiple sclerosis-associated proteins, 2023, Lake and Breen

[DokaGirl]

• Open Access
• Published: 08 January 2023

Sequence similarity between SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid and multiple sclerosis-associated proteins provides insight into viral neuropathogenesis following infection

• Camille M. Lake &
• Joseph J. Breen

Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 389 (2023) Cite this article

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Abstract
The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 continues to cause death and disease throughout the world, underscoring the necessity of understanding the virus and host immune response. From the start of the pandemic, a prominent pattern of central nervous system (CNS) pathologies, including demyelination, has emerged, suggesting an underlying mechanism of viral mimicry to CNS proteins. We hypothesized that immunodominant epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 share homology with proteins associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). Using PEPMatch, a newly developed bioinformatics package which predicts peptide similarity within specific amino acid mismatching parameters consistent with published MHC binding capacity, we discovered that nucleocapsid protein shares significant overlap with 22 MS-associated proteins, including myelin proteolipid protein (PLP). Further computational evaluation demonstrated that this overlap may have critical implications for T cell responses in MS patients and is likely unique to SARS-CoV-2 among the major human coronaviruses. Our findings substantiate the hypothesis of viral molecular mimicry in the pathogenesis of MS and warrant further experimental exploration.



https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-27348-8

 

[Snow Leopard]

The claims of mimicry are really weak.

Fisher’s exact or Chi square tests were run on both the 9mer and the 15mer peptides, with up to 2 mismatches for the 9mer peptides and up to 7 mismatches for the 15mer peptides.

They must be having a laugh with that - the match has to be much closer than that to be genuine mimicry.

Direct evidence would be T cell receptor sequencing showing clear matches for the hypothesised targets (PLP), but they haven't bothered to do that at all.