Background:
The female Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector of several arthropodborne viruses, such as Mayaro, Dengue, Chikungunya, Yellow Fever, and Zika. These
viruses cause the death of at least 600000 people a year and temporarily disable
several millions more around the world. Up to date, there are no effective prophylactic
measures that would prevent the contact and bite of this arthropod and, therefore, its
consequential contagion.
Objective:
The objective of the present study was to search for the regularities of the
proteins expressed by these five viruses, at residues level, and obtain a "bioinformatic
fingerprint" to select them.
Methods:
We used two bioinformatic systems, our in-house bioinformatic system
named Polarity Index Method® (PIM®) supported at residues level, and the commonly
used algorithm for the prediction of intrinsic disorder predisposition, PONDR® FIT. We
applied both programs to the 29 proteins that express the five groups of arboviruses
studied, and we calculated for each of them their Polarity Index Method® profile and
their intrinsic disorder predisposition. This information was then compared with
analogous information for other protein groups, such as proteins from bacteria, fungi,
viruses, and cell penetrating peptides from the UniProt database, and a set of
intrinsically disordered proteins. Once the "fingerprint" of each group of arboviruses
was obtained, these "fingerprints" were searched among the 559228 "reviewed"
proteins from the UniProt database.
Results:
In total, 1736 proteins were identified from the 559228 “reviewed” proteins
from UniProt database, with similar "PIM® profile" to the 29 mutated proteins that
express the five groups of arboviruses.
Conclusion:
We propose that the “PIM® profile” of characterization of proteins might
be useful for the identification of proteins expressed by arthropod-borne viruses
transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquito.