Armed with the above predictions and insights, one may make better informed judgements as to whether a domain for non-covalently binding host sialic acid glcycans may exist in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein See Fig. 5 . The above results suggesting the ability to distinguish between three classes of protein in relation to sialic acid glycan binding is perhaps surprising, not least because non-sialic sugars such as fucose and mannose can occur in cell surface glycans (including sialic acid glycans) as indicated in Introduction Section 1.3. This is discussed in Discussion Section 5.2. At this stage, only the ability to show propensities in different regions of the SARS-CoV-2 (GenBank entry MN908947.3) spike glycoprotein is required.
Fig. 5 Prediction of sialic acid glycan binding regions applied to the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein sequence.