MicroRNAs as powerful tool against COVID-19: Computational perspective

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is the virus that is responsible for the current pandemic, COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). MiRNAs, a component of RNAi technology, belong to the family of short, noncoding ssRNAs, and may be crucial in the battle against this global threat since they are involved in regulating complex biochemical pathways and may prevent viral proliferation, translation, and host expression. The complicated metabolic pathways are modulated by the activity of many proteins, mRNAs, and miRNAs working together in miRNA-mediated genetic control. The amount of omics data has increased dramatically in recent years. This massive, linked, yet complex metabolic regulatory network data offers a wealth of opportunity for iterative analysis; hence, extensive, in-depth, but time-efficient screening is necessary to acquire fresh discoveries; this is readily performed with the use of bioinformatics. We have reviewed the literature on microRNAs, bioinformatics, and COVID-19 infection to summarize (1) the function of miRNAs in combating COVID-19, and (2) the use of computational methods in combating COVID-19 in certain noteworthy studies, and (3) computational tools used by these studies against COVID-19 in several purposes. This article is categorized under: Infectious Diseases > Computational Models.