Abstract
Objective: Our goal was to elucidate a potential molecular link between the past and current tuberculosis vaccine Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG; a live attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis) immunization policies and COVID-19.
Methods: Our sequence homology analyses have demonstrated that there is an intriguing level of sequence homology between a few of the BCG and Sars-CoV-2 proteins.
Results: The data suggest that the BCG-specific memory B-cells that are preserved in BCG-vaccinated patients cross-recognize SARS-CoV-2 and that this cross-recognition may affect the virus proliferation and COVID-19 severity.
Conclusion: Our results can stimulate the sharply focused follow-up experimental studies.
Keywords: Covid-19, BCG vaccination, Sars-CoV-2 B-cell epitopes, bioinformatics analysis, tuberculosis vaccine, Mycobacterium bovis.
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-0820-9] [PMID: 32284615]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.03.022] [PMID: 32197085]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2012-7]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/bi036155b] [PMID: 15147189]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.2210/pdb6VYO/pdb]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2020.03.002] [PMID: 32183941]