DBCOVP: A database of coronavirus virulent glycoproteins

Since the emergence of SARS-CoV-1 (2002), novel coronaviruses have emerged periodically like the MERS-CoV (2012) and now, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak which has posed a global threat to public health. Although, this is the third zoonotic coronavirus breakout within the last two decades, there are only a few platforms that provide information about coronavirus genomes. None of them is specific for the virulence glycoproteins and complete sequence-structural features of these virulence factors across the betacoronavirus family including SARS-CoV-2 strains are lacking. Against this backdrop, we present DBCOVP (http://covp.immt.res.in/), the first manually-curated, web-based resource to provide extensive information on the complete repertoire of structural virulent glycoproteins from coronavirus genomes belonging to betacoronavirus genera. The database provides various sequence-structural properties in which users can browse and analyze information in different ways. Furthermore, many conserved T-cell and B-cell epitopes predicted for each protein are present that may perform a significant role in eliciting the humoral and cellular immune response. The tertiary structure of the epitopes together with the docked epitope-HLA binding-complex is made available to facilitate further analysis. DBCOVP presents an easy-to-use interface with in-built tools for similarity search, cross-genome comparison, phylogenetic, and multiple sequence alignment. DBCOVP will certainly be an important resource for experimental biologists engaged in coronavirus research studies and will aid in vaccine development.

Automated summary

DBCOVP is the first manually curated, web-based resource providing comprehensive information on structural virulent glycoproteins from coronavirus genomes. The database offers various sequence-structural properties for users to browse and analyze information in different ways, as well as predicted T-cell and B-cell epitopes that may play a significant role in immune responses. The database also provides an easy-to-use interface with built-in tools for a variety of analyses, making it an important resource for coronavirus research and vaccine development.