Lets analyze the Corona Virus 2 aka SARS-CoV-2 from first principles.
At a high level we can think of DNA as blueprints, RNA as the instructions, and Proteins as functions. From High school Biology class we can remember that DNA is made up of 4 nucleic acids guanine, adenine, cytosine and thymine; in RNA, uracil is used in place of thymine in a process called transcription. There are 20 common Amino acids each defined by a sets of three mRNA nucleotides (A, U, G and C). Proteins are a sequences of amino acid chains which fold into a specific shape to define its function.
The taxonomy is of the virus category and it molecular type is single stranded RNA, similarly to the other corona viruses. The 10 main CDS are A Chain of Proteins (ORF1ab), Spike Protein (S), Escape Artist (ORF3a), Envelope Protein (E), Membrane Protein (M), Signal Blocker (ORF6), Virus Liberator (ORF7a), Mystery Protein (ORF8), Nucleocapsid Protein · N, Mystery Protein (ORF10). The two important proteins to remeber are ORF1ab which funtion as the payload and S which is the exploit. The rest of the proteins assist to make everythig happen.
We will be using standard python packages for BioInfomratics.
- Explore CoV-2 genome (done)
- Compare CoV-2 to other viruses (work in progress)