In this study, the hypothesis that host cell miRNAs may have influenced
the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 was tested. Two sets of miRNAs expressed in
the main sites of virus reproduction, the lungs and the intestine, were
considered. It was found that those sets significantly differed in the
representation of individual miRNAs. On one hand, hsa-miR-143-3p,
hsa-miR-21-5p, hsa-miR-22-3p and hsa-miR-30a-5p were specific for the
lungs, with large predominance of miR-1433p expression (41.5%). On the
other hand, the intestine was characterized by a more uniform profile
with the presence of tissue-specific let-7b-5p, miR-92a-3p and
miR-200c-3p.
During pandemics, SARS-CoV-2 genomes lost many miRNA binding sites
specific for the lung and intestinal tissue expressed miRNAs.
Importantly, MonteCarlo simulations showed that observed changes were
significant only for the set