MON-522 In Silico Analysis of Polymorphism rs2228638 in Neuropillin-1 Demonstrated That This Variant May Hinder EBV Entry into Epithelial Cells

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is the first herpesvirus identified to be associated with human cancers and our group has demonstrated its association to thyroid cancer. It infects the vast majority of the world population causing latent and persistent infection, interfering in the metabolism of the host cells and triggering tumorigenic processes. Neuropillin-1 (NRP-1) is a type I transmembrane glycoprotein distributed on the cell surface of the virus, and considered vital for tumorigenesis. It has been demonstrated that EBV infection was increased by NRP1 expression. However, a conformational alteration of NRP1 could interfere with virus internalization into epithelial cells. The rs2228638 polymorphism of NRP1 may modify the molecule tridimensional configuration. In order to better understand the role of this polymorphism, based on NCBI dbSNP and UniProt databases, we evaluated the effect of the amino acid change in the protein structure using bioinformatics tools including SIFT, Align GVGD, PolyPhen-2, SNAP, PANTHER, PredictSNP, nsSNPAnalyzer, PROVEAN, SNP&GO, PMut and MuPRO. PANTHER prediction indicated that the polymorphic variant could produce a change in function. MuPRO indicated that the amino acid exchange produced by the polymorphism decreases protein stability. However, none of these tools showed conformational alteration. In conclusion, the presence of the rs2228638 polymorphism of NRP-1 may cause functional but not morphological changes that hinder EBV entry into the epithelial cells.