Epigenetics of Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism: Molecular Mimicry between Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 and KISSR

Abstract

This study analyzed KISS1 and its receptor KISSR for peptide sharing with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). It was found that SARS-CoV-2 shares numerous minimal immune pentapeptide determinants with KISSR only. The peptide sharing has a high immunologic potential since almost all the common peptides are present in 101 SARS-CoV-2-derived immunoreactive epitopes. Data are in favor of configuring molecular mimicry as an epigenetic factor that can alter KISSR thus causing the hypogonadotropic hypogonadism syndrome with which altered KISSR associates.

Keywords

KISSR / SARS-CoV-2 / autoimmunity: hypogonadotropic hypogonadism

References

[1] Cao Y, Li Z, Jiang W, Ling Y, Kuang H.Reproductive functions of kisspeptin/KISS1R systems in the periphery. Reprod Biol Endocrinol 2019; 17(01) 65

[2] Szydełko-Gorzkowicz M, Poniedziałek-Czajkowska E, Mierzyński R, Sotowski M, Leszczyńska-Gorzelak B.The role of kisspeptin in the pathogenesis of pregnancy complications: a narrative review. Int J Mol Sci 2022; 23(12) 6611

[3] Öztin H, Çağıltay E, Çağlayan S.et al.Kisspeptin levels in idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism diagnosed male patients and its relation with glucose-insulin dynamic. Gynecol Endocrinol 2016; 32(12) 991-994

[4] de Roux N, Genin E, Carel JC, Matsuda F, Chaussain JL, Milgrom E. Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism due to loss of function of the KiSS1-derived peptide receptor GPR54. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2003; 100(19) 10972-10976

[5] Prosperi S, Chiarelli F.Early and precocious puberty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) 2023; 13: 1107911

[6] Stagi S, De Masi S, Bencini E.et al.Increased incidence of precocious and accelerated puberty in females during and after the Italian lockdown for the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Ital J Pediatr 2020; 46(01) 165

[7] Facondo P, Maltese V, Delbarba A.et al.Case report: hypothalamic amenorrhea following COVID-19 infection and review of literatures. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne) 2022; 13: 840749

[8] Yamamoto Y, Otsuka Y, Sunada N.et al.Detection of male hypogonadism in patients with post COVID-19 condition. J Clin Med 2022; 11(07) 1955

[9] Lawry LL, Lugo-Robles R, McIver V. Overlooked sex and gender aspects of emerging infectious disease outbreaks: lessons learned from COVID-19 to move towards health equity in pandemic response. Front Glob Womens Health 2023; 4: 1141064

[10] UniProt Consortium. UniProt: a worldwide hub of protein knowledge. Nucleic Acids Res 2019; 47(D1): D506-D515

[11] Chen C, Li Z, Huang H, Suzek BE, Wu CH.UniProt Consortium. A fast peptide match service for UniProt knowledgebase. Bioinformatics 2013; 29(21) 2808-2809

[12] Kanduc D.Homology, similarity, and identity in peptide epitope immunodefinition. J Pept Sci 2012; 18(08) 487-494

[13] Kanduc D.Pentapeptides as minimal functional units in cell biology and immunology. Curr Protein Pept Sci 2013; 14(02) 111-120

[14] Kanduc D.Hydrophobicity and the physico-chemical basis of immunotolerance. Pathobiology 2020; 87(04) 268-276

[15] Kanduc D.The role of proteomics in defining autoimmunity. Expert Rev Proteomics 2021; 18(03) 177-184

[16] Vita R, Mahajan S, Overton JA.et al.The Immune Epitope Database (IEDB): 2018 update. Nucleic Acids Res 2019; 47(D1): D339-D343

[17] Martin WF.Physiology, anaerobes, and the origin of mitosing cells 50 years on. J Theor Biol 2017; 434: 2-10

[18] Kanduc D.The comparative biochemistry of viruses and humans: an evolutionary path towards autoimmunity. Biol Chem 2019; 400(05) 629-638

[19] Natale C, Giannini T, Lucchese A, Kanduc D.Computer-assisted analysis of molecular mimicry between human papillomavirus 16 E7 oncoprotein and human protein sequences. Immunol Cell Biol 2000; 78(06) 580-585

[20] Kanduc D.Peptimmunology: immunogenic peptides and sequence redundancy. Curr Drug Discov Technol 2005; 2(04) 239-244

[21] Lucchese G, Stufano A, Trost B, Kusalik A, Kanduc D.Peptidology: short amino acid modules in cell biology and immunology. Amino Acids 2007; 33(04) 703-707

[22] Kanduc D, Lucchese A, Mittelman A.Non-redundant peptidomes from DAPs: towards “the vaccine”?. Autoimmun Rev 2007; 6(05) 290-294

[23] Kanduc D, Stufano A, Lucchese G, Kusalik A.Massive peptide sharing between viral and human proteomes. Peptides 2008; 29(10) 1755-1766

[24] Kanduc D, Serpico R, Lucchese A, Shoenfeld Y.Correlating low-similarity peptide sequences and HIV B-cell epitopes. Autoimmun Rev 2008; 7(04) 291-296

[25] Kanduc D.Epitopic peptides with low similarity to the host proteome: towards biological therapies without side effects. Expert Opin Biol Ther 2009; 9(01) 45-53

[26] Kanduc D.Immunogenicity, immunopathogenicity, and immunotolerance in one graph. Anticancer Agents Med Chem 2015; 15(10) 1264-1268

[27] Saleem M, Khan SA, Khan MMM, Suchal ZA, Ram N.Clinical and biochemical characteristics of male idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism patients: a retrospective cross sectional study. Int J Fertil Steril 2023; 17(01) 57-60

[28] Cham G, O'Brien B, Kimble RM. Idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism: a rare cause of primary amenorrhoea in adolescence-a review and update on diagnosis, management and advances in genetic understanding. BMJ Case Rep 2021; 14(04) e239495

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2023 Global Medical Genetics