Coronaviruses (CoVs) are specific viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds, including humans, with symptoms such as enteritis in bats, mice and pigs and upper respiratory malfunctions and potentially lethal respiratory infections in humans [Fehr and Perlman 2015] A large variety of coronaviruseses have been previously studied and analyzed. These viruses are responsible in a 2-10% of common cold in immunocompetent individuals (i.e. 229E, OC43E, NL63 and HKU1 types). However, other types can cause severe respiratory syndromes, such as SARS-CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) that caused an epidemics in [2002] [2003] , with origin on Guangdong (China) [Vijayanand et al 2004] and MERS-CoV (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) expanded in 2014-2015 through Saudi Arabia into Egypt, Oman and Qatar, from bats to dromedary camels, as the source of infection in humans [Aleanizy et al 2017] .
At the end of 2019, a new SARS outbreak appeared in Wuhan (China) seafood market as the first focus of infection, becoming a pandemics in 2020 and spreading mainly into Europe and Asia, declaring general state of alarm in several countries, as Spain and Italy [Liao et al 2020 , Zu et al 2020 , Giovanetti et al 2020 .
Coronavirus infections have normally low case fatality rates, with symptoms more severe than common cold, affecting mainly respiratory tract (cilia epithelium of the trachea, nasal mucosa and alveolar cells of the lung). Although the virus family is well-known and symptoms are similar to other coronavirus (fever, pneumonia, small pleural effusions), this specific type of virus presents considerable differences, as a higher infection/transmission and mortality rate, being a challenge for disease protection, prevention, diagnostic methods, vaccines and treatments , Zhu et al 2020 .
Virus pharmacology is based on preventive actions (vector-based or RBD-based vaccines), diagnostic methods (real time RT-PCR or ELISA tests) and antiviral drugs. SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV epidemics have expanded the use of several drugs, specially virus cycle inhibitors against coronaviruses (fusion inhibitors, RdRp inhibitors or PL2pro/3CLpro protease inhibitors) [Li G and De Clercq 2019, Raoult et al 2020] In order to develop these methods, virus replication cycle must be simulated through computerized tools, specially for this virus family, with a complex replication cycle. Coronaviruses synthesize in a first stage a viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and multiple proteases, transcribes several subgenomic mRNAs and translates them progressively into viral proteins through several ribosomal pathways: (-1) programmed frameshift, leaky scanning and internal ribosome entry site (IRES) [Plant et al 2005] . Some mRNAs include genes encoding large polypeptide chains, which are cleaved through 3CLpro and PL2pro proteases, producing non-structural proteins as enzymes for catalyzing assembly and packaging of new viruses [Sawicki et al 2007 , Fehr and Perlman 2015 , Oxford et al. 2016 Coronavirus.pro (2019-nCoV) App is a C++ code which simulates Coronavirus replication cycle. This software identifies virus types in short times and provides FASTA files of virus proteins, a list of RNA sequences (regulatory, packaging, transcription and translation) and secondary structures (stem-loops, helixes, palindromes, mirrors), once the virus genome has been sequenced [Ramos-Pascual 2019]. The code is supported by other RNA analysis tools, such as Vienna RNA package and Varna software [Gruver et al 2008 , Darty et al 2009 . These results are useful as a first step with other bioinformatics and pharmacological tools in order to develop diagnostic methods, new vaccines and antiviral drugs.
2. The Coronavirus: classification, structure, genome and virus cycle 2.1 Classification Coronaviruses (CoVs) are part of the order Nidovirales, from the family Coronaviridae and formed by several subtypes: Alpha-, beta-, gamma-and delta-coronavirus. Virus 229E and OC43, the first of being isolated and responsible of common cold, belong to alpha-coronavirus group I, while SARS and MERS are beta-coronavirus.
Coronaviruses have diameters from 100 to 160 μm with very large heavily glycosylated spikes (S) of 200kDa and 20 μm, placed around virus membrane as a crown, hence their name, in a trimer configuration ( fig. 1 ).
Viral RNA genome is encapsulated in a helicoidal nucleocapsid phosphoprotein (N), known also as ribonucleoprotein (RNP), and enveloped into a virus particle with different membrane (M) and envelope glycoproteins (E).
Some coronaviruses include also a hemagglutinin-acetyleserase glycoprotein (HE) in the outer membrane. HEs helps during attachment, destroying certain sialic acid receptors in host-cell surface. Not all strains demonstrated hemagglutination, as observed only in beta-coronaviruses subgroup 2a (HCoV-HKU1, MHV) and toroviruses (BToV) [Brian et al. 1995 , de Groot 2006 Transcription initiation is regulated in coronaviruses by several types of consensus transcription regulating sequences: TRS1-L, 5'-cuaaac-3', TRS2-L, 5'-acgaac-3' and merged into TRS3-L, 5'-cuaaacgaac-3'. These multiple TRS give place to several subgenomic polycistronic mRNAs, encoding structural, non-structural and accessory proteins. In case of some coronaviruses (i.e. MERS-CoV), transcription starts mainly in TRS2-L, while other coronaviruses start transcription indistinctly in all TRS, in a way of regulating protein frequencies [Sethna et al 1989 , Irigoyen et al 2016 .
Coronavirus genome includes multiple open-reading frames (ORF) containing genes which are transcribed by several transcription regulating sequences (TRS). Genes encoding non-structural proteins are placed at 5' UTR (ORF1.1, ORF1.2 ...), whereas at 3' UTR are genes for structural (N, M, E and S) . These genes are interspaced with several accessory genes, encoding accessory proteins (AP), characteristics in number of each virus type. Some of these AP are not essential for in vitro or in vivo replication.
As transcription starts at different TRS in each subgenomic mRNA, the number of ORF genes is variable on virus type, and therefore the number of polypeptide chains. This produces different frequencies of nonstructural proteins during virus cycle. For example, SARS produces ORF1.1 and ORF1.2 genes, whereas 2019-nCoV, produces ORF1.1 to ORF1.6 genes, synthesizing several groups of fusion proteins [van Boheemen et al. 2012] . A (-1) programmed slippery ribosome frameshift is placed approximately in the middle of ORF1 genes, then translated into polypeptides pp1a and pp1ab [Dinman 2012 , Bock et al 2019 . Furthermore, Coronaviruses uses a leaky scanning mechanism (shunting) to synthesize proteins from overlapping ORF, translating different proteins from the same mRNA [Nakagawa et 2016] .
Surface glycosyllabed Spike (S) is processed in some coronaviruses from a proteollytic cleavage of a spike precursor [Belouzard et al 2009] . The number of spike precursors is characteristic of each coronavirus. For example, in the case of SARS-CoV, two spike precursors (Sp1 and Sp2) are proteolytically cleaved, producing two surface glycosyllabed spikes (S1 an S2) and a protease fragment (S0). 
As other viruses, Coronavirus employs glycosillabed spikes placed in the outer surface to attach specific receptors of host cells (i.e. APN/ACE2/DPP4 receptor). Specially, betacoronaviruses attach to angiotensinconverting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor, a membrane protein expressed mainly in the surface of epithelial cells of the pulmonary alveolus [Jia et al 2005] . Once attachment is carried out, viral transmembrane is fused through an endocytotic pathway and viral RNA is released into the cell cytoplasm [Wang et al 2008] . Viral RNA genome is positive stranded, 5' capped and 3'polyadenylated, therefore it can be directly translated into proteins by host-cell ribosomes. Specifically, ORF1 gene contains several non-structural proteins in a polypeptide complex, that once translated, is are catalytically autoprocessed by 3CL/2PL proteases, and assembled into a replicase-transcriptase complex with RNA-dependent RNA activity (RdRp). At this point, several subgenomic mRNAs are produced by transcription and translated into structural (N, M, E and S), non-structural and accessory proteins (AP), assembling new virions. These virus particles are formed on smooth-walled vesicles located between the ER and the Golgi, named as ERGIC (Endoplasmic Reticulum Golgi Intermediate Compartment). Once these vesicles fuse with the plasma outer membrane, virions are released to continue infection (see fig 4) . 3. Coronavirus.pro
Coronavirus.pro is a module of Virus.pro, a C++ software application developed in modules that simulate mainly RNA and DNA virus replication cycles: Ebola, HIV-1, HCV (Hepatitis C), CoV, HSV1 (Human Herpes Virus), PV1 (Poliovirus 1, Mahoney) The software reproduces several virus cycle replication stages, from attachment and fusion to virion exit from host-cell, focusing into more complex stages, such as subgenomic mRNAs translation, protein synthesis and protease catalytic processing (see fig. 5 and 6).
Virus.pro contains a set of RNA/DNA databases and protein databases to scan viral genome and protein sequences for recognized motifs, reconstruct secondary structures (helixes, stem-loops, palindromes, mirrors) and identify RNA-protein interaction regions. The software is supported with other applications, as Vienna RNA package, for bracket-dot notation and Varna for plotting (see fig. 7 Coronavirus.pro includes a preprocessor to convert viral genome sequence file into a plain sequence format (nucleotides list). Preprocessor supports genomes in formats: FASTA, EMBL, GenBank, Stockholm 1.0 and GCG (see fig 8) . . This frameshift is followed by a pseudoknot structure located few nucleotides downstream and is able to change reading frame -1 position backward, translating an alternative polypeptide (pp1ab with frameshift). Frameshifting probability is approximately between 5-10%. In same cases, translation starts after a leaky scanning (shunting) [Dinman 2012 , Bock et al 2019 or Internal Ribosomal Entry Site (IRES) [Bonnal et al 2003 , Mokrejs et al 2006 After this, viral proteases cleave with enzymatic activity these polypeptides at specific cleavage sites to synthesize non-structural proteins [Kiemer et al 2004] . Protease cleavage sites are predicted depending on protease family (aspartic, cysteine, metallo or serine protease) and through specific cleavage patterns [Song et al. 2012] Coronavirus proteases are a papain-like (PL2 pro ) and a cysteine 3C-like proteinase (3CL pro ) synthesized from nsp3 and nsp5, respectively [Chen et al 2005] .
Coronavirus.pro simulates proteolytic effect of coronavirus proteases PL2pro and 3CLpro though multiple protease pattern sequences (table 3) . Most of these sequences have been previously validated in some research studies and others have been proposed by comparison with protein databases, as UniProt or NCBI, and recursive simulations with the software [Kiemer et al 2004 , Sulea et al 2006 . 
Coronavirus.pro has predicted all canonical protease cleavage sites in coronavirus polypeptides, from nsp1 to nsp16. Furthermore, the software has identified a protease cleavage site in spike glycoprotein precursors (Sp) in all coronaviruses. This cleavage site splits spike precursors (Sp) into S/S0 proteins, where S0 is the same protease fragment in both precursors.
Another cleavage site has been predicted in membrane protein (M) of 2019-nCoV virus, producing fragments M1/M2 In the case of MERS-CoV nucleocapsid (N), the software has found two protease cleavage sites, N1/N2 and N2/N3. In addition to these cleavage sites, the code has identified other protease cleavage sites giving place to some hypothetical proteins, as nsp3a↓nsp3b, nsp8a↓nsp8b and nsp13a↓nsp13b (see table 5 ). These cleavage sites must be discussed in detail and supported with other methods. ORF3b is translated with an Internal Ribosome Entry Site (IRES). Other ORF encode some proteins (AP8b, AP7b, AP9b and AP14) with unknown transcription regulating sequences and functionality [Narayanan et al 2008] . ORF8b overlaps nucleocapside gene (N) and encodes an accessory protein AP8b, called AP9b in SARS.
Although it is not translated directly by any TRS, some studies have found antibodies specific to this protein in both in vitro and in vivo samples [Sharma et al 2011] Tables 6 and 7 present a summary of ORF and proteins identified with Coronavirus.pro in MERS-CoV. SARS-CoV includes a transcription regulating sequence TRS which is not in MERS virus type, TRS3 (5'cuaaacgaac-3'), also present in 2019-nCoV. SARS-CoV has several accessory protein (AP3a, AP6, AP7a), which are translated directly from mRNAs. In the case of AP6, although in some studies is named as nsp6, it is not processed by any protease, as other non-structural proteins. Other proteins, as AP11 is only characteristic from SARS-CoV. Furthermore, the shortest mRNA (ORF15), with a length of 263bp, translates no significant proteins and has an unknown functionality. Tables 8 and 9 show open-reading frames (ORF) and proteins (structural, non-structural, accessory and fusion) for SARS identified with Coronavirus.pro. 2019-nCoV coronavirus presents relative differences in transcription and subgenomic mRNAs translation with other beta-coronavirus. This virus initiates transcription in 20 TRS sites, transcribing more types of subgenomic mRNAs than SARS/MERS. 2019-nCoV synthesizes around 9 types of fusion proteins, which are remarkably more than SARS/MERS coronavirus, and it is expected than the concentration of non-structural proteins, specially nsp12 (RdRp), nsp3 (PL2pro) and nsp5(3CLpro) is also higher. This fact could be related with the most severe health effects (toxicity) and highest infectivity on host patients than other betacoronavirus.
Furthermore, 2019-nCoV transcribes a mRNA (ORF15), with the shortest length (374bp), with no significant proteins encoded, as also present in SARS-CoV. Finally, 2019-nCoV virus translates another accessory protein, AP12, specific of this virus type. Table 10 and 11 shows open-reading frames (ORF) and proteins (structural, non-structural, accessory and fusion) identified with Coronavirus.pro software in 2019-nCoV virus. In general to all of these betacoronaviruses, there are several accessory proteins which expression in vivo and in vitro has not been proved, and therefore its function is still unknown. It is the case of accessory protein AP2 in SARS/MERS and AP2a/b in 2019-nCoV.
There are considerable differences between spike glycoproteins. For example, the number of spike glycoproteins is variable with MERS and also between SARS virus types. KY417149 (SARS) virus sequence encodes three spike glycoprotein precursors of different amino acid lengths (S1p, S2p and S3p), which later are processed by virus protease into S1, S2 and S3 spikes, with a common fragment S0. In the case of, NC004718 and AY278488 (SARS), it synthesizes two spike precursors (S1p and S2p), whereas 2019-nCoV and MERS, only one is processed. Spike glycoproteins from the same virus, although having different lengths, are estimated with a 100% identity, as observed from their identity matrices.
In the case of other proteins (N, M and E), it can be observed that this virus is more close related to SARS than to MERS, as also discussed previously. However, it presents also around 10% differences with other SARS, so it could be considered as a different virus type All these proteins have been aligned with Clustal 1.2 to compare similarities [Higgins 1994 , Brown et al 1998 ] (see Annex A for alignment details). Table 12 compares structural proteins in these genome sequences of beta-coronaviruses. In the case of MERS, no identity has been found in any protein (< 50%). Table 13 compares 2019-nCoV proteins with several virus genome sequences of SARS-CoV. As observed, most of non-structural proteins (nsp1, nsp3b and nsp5 to nsp16), accessory proteins AP7a/b and structural proteins M, N and E have the highest percents of similarity (>70%), proving that this virus is more close related with SARS type than MERS. Glycoprotein spike (S), most of accessory proteins (except AP7a/b, AP11 and AP14a) and nonstructured proteins nsp2 to nsp3a and nsp4 have low similarity (< 50 %), proving that those proteins are characteristics of this virus type, and potential targets for specific vaccines and antiviral drugs. The fact that non-structural proteins are similar to SARS, indicates that antiviral drugs could be effective also to this virus. As 3CLpro (nsp5) and RdRp (nsp12) have >90% similarities with SARS, some antiviral drugs, such as protease inhibitors or RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitors could be effective to this virus type. Nevertheless, further comparisons would be required, including other types of estimators.
Coronavirus.pro software provides an accurate and reliable simulation model of Coronaviruses replication cycles: SARS/MERS/2019-nCoV. The code simulates transcription of subgenomic mRNAs, translation, protease cleavage, protein synthesis and virus assembly, including all fusion proteins.
As a result of the analysis, 2019-nCoV can be identified as a beta-coronavirus type SARS-CoV virus with high confidence, named SARS-CoV2, and it is consistent with other recent research analysis. Similarities have been found in 5'utr and 3'utr regions, protease cleavage sites and amino acid composition of both structural and non-structural proteins [Ceraolo and Giorgi 2020 , Gorbalenya et al. 2020 However, there are still differences between both coronavirus (SARS-CoV and 2019-nCoV), as the number of spike precursors and accessory proteins.
Coronavirus.pro is able to identify virus type and family, comparing virus genome and proteins with protein and RNA motifs databases. In this case, 2019-nCoV has been identified as a beta-coronavirus SARS in more than 70% than with MERS. However several differences have been found with SARS/MERS. 2019-nCoV has more transcription regulating sequences (TRS) interspaced in the genome and consequently, is producing more subgenomic mRNAs and more fusion proteins during RdRp transcription, which could explain more severe health effects and infectivity than SARS/MERS.
The software has identified those proteins characteristics of 2019-nCoV: Spike S, AP3a, AP3b, AP8, AP9b, AP12 and AP14b and nsp2/3/3a, with similarity < 50 % with other beta-coronaviruses.
Coronavirus.pro has predicted also some accessory proteins in all beta-coronavirus which have not been previously described, called AP2 in SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, and AP2a/AP2b in 2019-nCoV, respectively. These proteins are encoded in the same genetic region as PL2pro protease (nsp3) and are translated before ORF1.2 (SARS/MERS) and ORF1.4 (2019-nCoV). If they are expressed in vivo or in vitro is not clearly understood, as they could be part of a leaky scanning/shunting mechanism.
The software has predicted some additional protease cleavage sites, giving place to some hypothetical proteins, as nsp3a↓nsp3b, nsp8a↓nsp8b, nsp13a↓nsp13b, M1↓M2 and N1↓N2↓N3. These cleavage sites must be discussed and supported in detail with other methods.
As a conclusion, Coronavirus.pro (2019-nCoV) is able to identify virus genomes and provides in short times useful results (FASTA files of virus proteins and RNA secondary structures). Future research will be focused in interactions between RNA and protein sequences and intracellular processes, fusion protein synthesis, RNA packaging and virus assembly, as carried out before with HIV virus with Monte Carlo simulations. These results will be applied to develop preventive actions (vaccines), diagnostic methods (real time RT-PCR or ELISA tests), and antiviral drugs (fusion inhibitors, RdRp inhibitors or PL2pro/3CLpro protease inhibitors).