Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-SNPs

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-SNPs

A single nucleotide polymorphism or SNP is a single nucleotide variation at a specific genomic position in a large population. It is the most prevalent type of sequence variation found in the human genome. Point mutations that occur in more than 1% of the population qualify as SNPs. These are present once every 1000 nucleotides on an average in the human genome. Replacement of a purine with another purine (A/G) or a pyrimidine with another pyrimidine (C/T) is known as a transition. In contrast,...

Protein Organization

Protein Organization

Proteins are polymers of amino acid residues. They are versatile and responsible for different cellular functions, including DNA replication, molecular transport, catalysis, and structural support. Proteins have a hierarchical structure comprising at least three levels of organization: primary, secondary, and tertiary structure. Some large proteins have a quaternary structure where individual protein subunits are linked together.
The primary structure of a protein is its amino acid sequence....

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Closing the Carbon Loop: Continuous-Flow Synthesis of N-Aroyl Sulfoximines via Electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> Reduction.

ChemSusChem·2026

Same author

Safety Profile of Zavegepant in the Treatment of Acute Migraine: Insights from the FDA Adverse Event Monitoring System Database.

Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland)·2026

Same author

Assessing Cat Welfare: A Literature Review on Behavioural, Physiological and Health Parameters with a Focus on Animal-Assisted Services (AAS).

Veterinary sciences·2026

Same author

Proteostasis, Assisted Reproductive Technologies, and Neurodevelopmental Differences: An Integrative Perspective.

Proteomes·2026

Same author

Mechanistic insights into PFAS-induced effects on B lymphocyte activation and antibody secretion.

Archives of toxicology·2026

Same author

The pathogenicity of immigration detention: a systemic conflict between medical ethics and harmful migration policies.

The Lancet regional health. Europe·2026

Same journal

Correction to: Pathogenicity patterns in cytochrome P450 family.

Bioinformatics advances·2026

Same journal

Region-aware bridge modeling enables interpretable mesoscale representation of spatial transcriptomic tissue sections.

Bioinformatics advances·2026

Same journal

Microbiome differential abundance methodologies to detect relevant taxa associated with chemotherapy toxicity rate in colorectal cancer.

Bioinformatics advances·2026

Same journal

maldipickr dereplicates microbial MALDI-TOF spectra to facilitate multiplexed isolation.

Bioinformatics advances·2026

Same journal

RAM-MSA: an anytime memory-bounded method for exact multiple sequence alignment using path finding.

Bioinformatics advances·2026

Same journal

Interpretable machine learning for low-sample multi-omics: a case study of ferret vaccine response.

Bioinformatics advances·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jan 10, 2026

Engineering Antiviral Agents via Surface Plasmon Resonance

Engineering Antiviral Agents via Surface Plasmon Resonance

Published on: June 14, 2022

Exploring SARS-CoV-2 spike protein mutations through genetic algorithm-driven structural modeling.

Valentina Di Salvatore¹, Avisa Maleki¹, Babak Mohajer²

¹Department of Drug and Health Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, 95125, Italy.

Bioinformatics Advances

|November 21, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This study introduces a genetic algorithm (GA) for optimizing SARS-CoV-2 spike protein structures, focusing on stability and binding properties. The computational method refines protein models in silico to aid future variant monitoring and vaccine development.

More Related Videos

Probing RNA Structure with Dimethyl Sulfate Mutational Profiling with Sequencing In Vitro and in Cells

Probing RNA Structure with Dimethyl Sulfate Mutational Profiling with Sequencing In Vitro and in Cells

Published on: December 9, 2022

Pharmacophore Modeling for Targets with Extensive Ligand Libraries: A Case Study on SARS-CoV-2 Mpro

Pharmacophore Modeling for Targets with Extensive Ligand Libraries: A Case Study on SARS-CoV-2 Mpro

Published on: September 26, 2025

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jan 10, 2026

Engineering Antiviral Agents via Surface Plasmon Resonance

Engineering Antiviral Agents via Surface Plasmon Resonance

Published on: June 14, 2022

Probing RNA Structure with Dimethyl Sulfate Mutational Profiling with Sequencing In Vitro and in Cells

Probing RNA Structure with Dimethyl Sulfate Mutational Profiling with Sequencing In Vitro and in Cells

Published on: December 9, 2022

Pharmacophore Modeling for Targets with Extensive Ligand Libraries: A Case Study on SARS-CoV-2 Mpro

Pharmacophore Modeling for Targets with Extensive Ligand Libraries: A Case Study on SARS-CoV-2 Mpro

Published on: September 26, 2025

Area of Science:

Computational biology
Structural biology
Virology

Background:

The rapid evolution of SARS-CoV-2 necessitates advanced computational methods to understand mutations in the spike protein.
Assessing the impact of mutations on viral stability and receptor binding is crucial for predicting viral behavior and developing countermeasures.

Purpose of the Study:

To present a genetic algorithm (GA) framework for the structural optimization of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variants.
To focus on energetic and binding properties of spike protein variants, rather than direct evolutionary prediction.
To demonstrate a computational approach for refining protein models and exploring mutation effects in silico.

Main Methods:

Application of a genetic algorithm (GA) pipeline for structural optimization of spike protein variants.
Evaluation of discrete optimized protein energy (DOPE) scores to assess structural stability across generations.
Calculation of Gibbs free energy and binding affinity for spike protein-Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor interactions.

Main Results:

The GA pipeline successfully generated spike variants with improved structural stability, indicated by decreasing DOPE scores.
Candidate conformations with favorable thermodynamic properties were identified through analysis of Gibbs free energy and binding affinity.
The study demonstrated the algorithm's capability to refine protein models and explore potential mutation effects computationally.

Conclusions:

The developed GA framework provides a methodological approach for in silico structural modeling of SARS-CoV-2 spike mutations.
This computational strategy can be integrated with evolutionary and experimental data to enhance variant monitoring and vaccine development efforts.
While not validating against naturally emerging variants, the study confirms the feasibility of using GA for exploring viral protein mutation landscapes.