Atelier 5 - Coronavirus and proteins...
Since December 2019, a new coronavirus of animal origin started to infect
humans: this is the beginning of a pandemic
This virus is called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus 2
(
SARS-CoV-2).
He is responsible for the disease called Coronavirus disease-19 (
COVID-19).
These activities highlight how
bioinformatics can be harnessed to study a new virus, its genomes, its
proteins, its origin...and its evolution !
"
We are learning so much, so fast!"
E. Hodcroft
Objectives
- Discover SARS-CoV-2 genome(s) and protein(s)
- Compare SARS-CoV-2 genomes sequenced in various countries: look for
the differences (mutations) and identify the virus variants
- Discover how to monitor the impact of a mutation such as the N501Y
mutation on infectivity and immune response
- Discover bioinformatic databases - GenBank (DNA),
UniProtKB (protein),
PDB (3D structure), Viralzone
- Discover bioinformatic tools (Blast,
BLAT, align,
translate)
- Better understand current research... and the challenges faced!
Publication: Using bioinformatics
to hunt SARS-CoV-2, its variants & its origins – a practical guide
(2021)
Prerequisite
The links below give access to the different chapters of a pdf document.
- What is a virus
- Viruses that infect human
- Coronavirus and SARS-CoV-2
- Discover the genome of SARS-CoV-2 (10 January 2020, Wuhan)
- Test the specificity of the RT-PCR
- Access and compare the genomes of SARS-CoV-2 sequenced in different
countries
- Look for the mutations
- Identify the virus variants
- Discover the different proteins of the virus
- Discover the function of the spike protein, its gene,
its amino acid sequence and its 3D structure
- From gene to the protein sequence: translate
- About the RNA vaccines
- Translate nucleotide sequences from different virus variants
- Discover the N501Y mutation and its impact
- Combination of mutations: discover the different variants (Alpha,
Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron, ...)
- Compare the spike sequence of coronavirus infecting different animals
(bat, pangolin, ...)
- Compare the spike protein sequences from different coronavirus....
- Misinterpretation of similarity searches (BLAST) and fake news...
How to contact us...
This workshop is the result of a collaboration between
L'éprouvette,
University of Lausanne's public laboratory (Service Culture et Médiation
Scientifique) and the
Swiss-Prot group - SIB Swiss
Institute of Bioinformatics.
We can run this workshop in your classrooms or online : do not hesitate to
contact us!
About us...
License & disclaimer
This portal is licensed under a
Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.