In-silico evaluation of the potential of a viral protein (Apoptin) as an anticancer agent

As a significant immunosuppressive virus, chicken anemia virus (CAV) is common among natural poultry hosts and newborn chickens. It contains a tiny single-stranded negative circular DNA genome, encoding three proteins vp1, vp2, and vp3. Apoptin, encoded by the vp3 gene of the CAV virus, is a small protein whose subcellular localization appears to be crucial for tumor-selective activity. Residing in the cytoplasm of normal cells, it translocates into the nucleus in cancerous cells. Apoptin has attracted much attention because of causes specific death in transformed and cancer cells and has toxic effects on cancer cells. In-silico analysis of apoptin revealed the unknown structural and functional features. Physicochemical features and sequence analysis and secondary structure prediction were also conducted using Expasy server tools. Furthermore, the global structure of apoptin was modeled using the I-TASSER server and antigenic features were obtained via the application of the IEBD web tools. The results of in-silico analysis indicated that this protein had a stable structure, was a suitable choice for therapeutic goals, capable of acting as a good anti-cancer agent.

Automated summary

Chicken anemia virus (CAV) is a common immunosuppressive virus in poultry, with its encoded protein Apoptin showing selective activity against tumor cells. In-silico analysis revealed Apoptin's stable structure, making it a promising candidate for therapeutic use as an anti-cancer agent.