Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Molecular mimicry defined as similar structures shared by molecules from dissimilar genes or by their protein products, is a general strategy for pathogens to infect host cells. Therefore, identification of the molecular mimic regions of a pathogen may be helpful to understand the disease. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a new human respiratory infectious disease caused by SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). The virus uses the spike (S) protein to interact with the angiotensin converting enzyme 2, the host cell receptor. Our approach is to design a workflow with multiple bioinformatics tools in analyzing the sequence of spike protein of the SARSCoV in searching its similarity to human proteins. Furthermore, eleven peptides have been synthesized to validate the in silico results.