An in-depth annotation of the newly discovered coronavirus (2019-nCoV) genome has revealed differences between 2019-nCoV and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) or SARS-like coronaviruses. A systematic comparison identified 380 amino acid substitutions between these coronaviruses, which may have caused functional and pathogenic divergence of 2019-nCoV.

COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented devastation, humanity needs an urgent cure to save the mankind from this deadly disease. Over six million people have been infected worldwide, with 6.3% reported deaths till date. SARS-CoV-2 virus, responsible for Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease has been isolated recently and the vaccine's development is at nascent stage. At present, there are a few anecdotal evidences that anti-viral/anti-in ammatory/anti-malarial drugs can mitigate the disease. In the present study, we envision the potency of traditional Indian medicinal compounds that can be used as an effective drug. The viral SARS Coronavirus E protein plays a key role in virus life cycle and can be a potential drug target for the development of anti-SARS-CoV-2 drugs. Using the crystal structure of the CoVE protein, we performed virtual PyRX screening of Indian medicinal compounds which are reported to have e cacy in the treatment of some viral infections. Molecular docking studies were evaluated based on scores analysed by CavityPlus. The herbal compounds used were found to be more e cient in inhibiting the virus as compared to commercially available drugs. The results showed that β-boswellic acid and Glycyrrhizic acid possessed the best binding as a ligand with target molecule having binding a nity of-9.1 kcal/mol amongst eleven compounds screened. The study demonstrated that these are found to be strong SARS-CoV-2E protein inhibitors as they revealed compatible, near perfect dock in the overlapping region of functional viral protein pockets. These potential hit compounds can pave a way for designing of anti-viral therapeutics.

We introduce Paircoil2, a new version of the Paircoil program, which uses pairwise residue probabilities to detect coiled-coil motifs in protein sequence data. Paircoil2 achieves 98% sensitivity and 97% specificity on known coiled coils in leave-family-out cross-validation. It also shows superior performance compared with published methods in tests on proteins of known structure.

SARS-CoV-2, a β-coronavirus, has rapidly spread across the world, highlighting its high transmissibility, but the underlying morphogenesis and pathogenesis remain poorly understood. Here, we characterize the replication dynamics, cell tropism and morphogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 in organotypic human airway epithelial (HAE) cultures. SARS-CoV-2 replicates efficiently and infects both ciliated and secretory cells in HAE cultures. In comparison, HCoV-NL63 replicates to lower titers and is only detected in ciliated cells. SARS-CoV-2 shows a similar morphogenetic process as other coronaviruses but causes plaque-like cytopathic effects in HAE cultures. Cell fusion, apoptosis, destruction of epithelium integrity, cilium shrinking and beaded changes are observed in the plaque regions. Taken together, our results provide important insights into SARS-CoV-2 cell tropism, replication and morphogenesis.

The notion that animals can detect the Earth's magnetic field was once ridiculed, but is now well established. Yet the biological nature of such magnetosensing phenomenon remains unknown. Here, we report a putative magnetic receptor (Drosophila CG8198, here named MagR) and a multimeric magnetosensing rod-like protein complex, identified by theoretical postulation and genome-wide screening, and validated with cellular, biochemical, structural and biophysical methods. The magnetosensing complex consists of the identified putative magnetoreceptor and known magnetoreception-related photoreceptor cryptochromes (Cry), has the attributes of both Cry- and iron-based systems, and exhibits spontaneous alignment in magnetic fields, including that of the Earth. Such a protein complex may form the basis of magnetoreception in animals, and may lead to applications across multiple fields.

Initially isolated in 1947, Zika virus (ZIKV) has recently emerged as significant public health concern. Sequence analysis of all 41 known ZIKV RNA open reading frames to date indicates that ZIKV has undergone significant changes in both protein and nucleotide sequences during the past half century.

With more than 1,800,000 cases and 110,000 deaths globally, COVID-19 is one of worst infectious disease outbreaks in history. This paper provides a critical review of the available evidence regarding the lessons learned from the Chinese experience with COVID-19 prevention and management. The steps that have led to a near disappearance of new cases in China included rapid sequencing of the virus to establish testing kits, which allowed tracking of infected persons in and out of Wuhan. In addition, aggressive quarantine measures included the R ESUM EAvec plus de 1 800 000 cas et 110 000 d ecès dans le monde, la COVID-19 est l'une des pires eclosions de maladies infectieuses de l'histoire. Ce document pr esente un examen critique des constats disponibles concernant les leçons tir ees de l'exp erience chinoise en matière de pr evention et de gestion de la COVID-19. Les mesures qui ont conduit à la quasi-disparition des nouveaux cas en Chine comprenaient le s equençage rapide du virus pour etablir des trousses de tests, ce qui a permis de suivre les personnes infect ees à l'int erieur et à Since mid-December 2019, there has been a worldwide outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID)e19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 (formerly 2019-nCoV or HCoV-19) and first detected in Wuhan, China. The incubation period is 1-14 days (mean 5-6 days) in most cases, but can be as long as 24 days. 1 The most commonly seen characteristics of COVID-19 are fever, cough, and abnormal chest computed tomography. 2,3 At present, the Chinese chrysanthemum bat is thought to be the origin of SARS-CoV-2, based on sequence homology of 96% between SARS-CoV-2 and Bat-CoV-RaTG13. 4,5 The pangolin has been proposed as an intermediate host, but this has not been confirmed. 6,7 Human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurs mainly via respiratory droplets, 1 direct contact, 1 asymptomatic transmission, 8,9 and intrafamilial transmission. 3 SARS-CoV-2 can affect any demographic, including senior citizens, children, and pregnant women. 3,10 According to the World Health Organisation (WHO),

Mice are some of the widely used experimental animal models for studying human diseases. Defining the compositions of immune cell populations in various tissues from experimental mouse models is critical to understanding the involvement of immune responses in various physiological and patho-physiological conditions. However, non-lymphoid tissues are normally composed of vast and diverse cellular components, which make it difficult to quantify the relative proportions of immune cell types. Here we report the development of a computational algorithm, ImmuCC, to infer the relative compositions of 25 immune cell types in mouse tissues using microarray-based mRNA expression data. The ImmuCC algorithm showed good performance and robustness in many simulated datasets. Remarkable concordances were observed when ImmuCC was used on three public datasets, one including enriched immune cells, one with normal single positive T cells, and one with leukemia cell samples. To validate the performance of ImmuCC objectively, thorough cross-comparison of ImmuCC predicted compositions and flow cytometry results was done with in-house generated datasets collected from four distinct mouse lymphoid tissues and three different types of tumor tissues. The good correlation and biologically meaningful results demonstrate the broad utility of ImmuCC for assessing immune cell composition in diverse mouse tissues under various conditions.