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Coronaviruses

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ISSN (Print): 2666-7967
ISSN (Online): 2666-7975

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Letter to the Editor

A Note on the Potential BCG Vaccination – COVID-19 Molecular Link

Author(s): Alex Y. Strongin, Alex Sloutsky and Piotr Cieplak*

Volume 1, Issue 1, 2020

Page: [4 - 6] Pages: 3

DOI: 10.2174/2666796701999200629003417

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.

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