miRNA target prediction might explain the reduced transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Jordan, Middle East.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding RNAs that control many functions within the human cells by controlling protein levels through binding to messenger RNA (mRNA) translation process or mRNA abundance. Many pieces of evidence show that miRNAs affect the viral RNA replication and pathogenesis through direct binding to the RNA virus to mediate changes in the host transcriptome. Many previous studies have been studying the interaction between human cells' miRNA and viral RNA to predict many targets along the viral genome. In this work, via the miRDB database, we determined the target scores of predicted human miRNA to bind with the ss-RNA of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in general and its spike gene in specific. Our predicted miRNA targets of the ss-RNA of SARS-CoV-2 might destabilize the ss-RNA translation of SARS-CoV-2 that has been established by more than 80% of asymptomatic infected cases in Jordan due to host miRNA interactions. In respiratory epithelial cells, the high prediction scoring for miRNAs covers the RNA from 5' to 3' that explains successful antiviral defenses against ss-RNA of SARS-CoV-2 and might lead to new nucleotide deletion mechanisms. The exciting findings here that the nucleotide substitution 1841A > G at the viral genomic RNA level, which is an amino acid substation D614G at the spike protein level showed a change in the predicted miRNA sequence from hsa-miR-4793-5p to hsa-miR-3620-3p with an increase in the target score from 91 to 92.