Identification of Plant MicroRNAs Potentially Influencing Virus Leader Sequence Suppression for COVID-19 Treatment Using Bioinformatics Methods
Project no. 32615 · Status: Kapanmış · 2024
Summary
<pre data-language="plain">Covid-19 is a viral disease that began in December 2019, was declared a "pandemic" by the World Health Organization (WHO) within a short period of about a month, and then affected the entire world within three months. Although it is now four years old, Covid-19 continues to have an impact worldwide. While protective vaccines are available for immunization, the virus has not yet been brought under control due to mutations and the resulting new variants. Bioinformatics, a multidisciplinary field of study encompassing biology, genetics, information technology, and computer science, currently provides researchers with access to a rich pool of data from these scientific fields through databases. This project will utilize the 5' untranslated sequence (UTR) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, a single-stranded RNA virus causing Covid-19, along with microRNAs previously uploaded to plant miRNA databases as a result of various studies. The binding of these miRNAs to the 5' UTR region of Covid-19 will be investigated using bioinformatic methods, and miRNAs that bind to this region and suppress viral replication will be identified. Furthermore, the thermodynamic binding energies and stability of plant miRNA structures that inactivate the virus and suppress the disease process will also be determined using bioinformatic methods. The results obtained will allow for more effective results from plant-derived therapies in future studies on the treatment of the Covid-19 virus using plant miRNAs, with the miRNAs expected to be identified in the results of this project. </pre>