Sequence Analysis and Structure Prediction of SARS-CoV-2 Accessory Proteins 9b and ORF14: Evolutionary Analysis Indicates Close Relatedness to Bat Coronavirus

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has a single-stranded RNA genome that encodes 14 open reading frames (ORFs), eight of which encode accessory proteins that allow the virus to infect the host and promote virulence. The genome expresses around 29 structural and nonstructural protein products. The accessory proteins of SARS-CoV-2 are not essential for virus replication but do affect viral release, stability, and pathogenesis and finally contribute to virulence. This paper has attempted the structure prediction and functional analysis of two such accessory proteins, 9b and ORF14, in the absence of experimental structures. Sequence analysis, structure prediction, functional characterization, and evolutionary analysis based on the UniProtKB reviewed the amino acid sequences of SARS-CoV-2 9b (P0DTD2) and ORF14 (P0DTD3) proteins. Modeling has been presented with the introduction of hybrid comparative and ab initio modeling. QMEANDisCo 4.0.0 and ProQ3 for global and local (per residue) quality estimates verified the structures as high quality, which may be attributed to structure-based drug design targets. Tunnel analysis revealed the presence of 1-2 highly active tunneling sites, perhaps which will able to provide certain inputs for advanced structure-based drug design or to formulate potential vaccines in the absence of a complete experimental structure. The evolutionary analysis of both proteins of human SARS-CoV-2 indicates close relatedness to the bat coronavirus. The whole-genome phylogeny indicates that only the new bat coronavirus followed by pangolin coronaviruses has a close evolutionary relationship with the novel SARS-CoV-2.