Comparative analysis of human coronavirus-NL63 ORF3 protein homologues
Abstract
It has been reported in some studies that the newly discovered human coronavirus NL-63 (HCoVNL63)
is one of the most common coronaviruses associated with acute respiratory infections. HCoVNL63
was first isolated in 2004 from a 7 month old infant in Holland. The HCoV-NL63 genome
encodes for one accessory protein, ORF3. This reports the computational analysis of human
coronavirus NL63 ORF3 by comparing the amino acid sequences of coronavirus ORF3-homologues.
The HCoV-NL63 ORF3 gene was found to encode a putative protein ~25.6 kDa in size. ORF3 was
predicted to contain three potential transmembrane regions. The amino acid sequence of HCoVNL63
ORF3 was shown to be most similar to HCoV 229E ORF4 (43% identity; 62% similarity).