Fig. 1

Diagram of gene regulatory network (GRN) and host-virus interaction scheme. a the GRN is composed of a transcription factor regulation sub-network and a receptor protein coding regulation sub-network. Mutations at the network level can be used to shut down the targetable receptor. Mutations at the protein level can result in a protein mismatch to block virus protein binding. b If more than ϵ _seqM % of amino acids are one-to-one matched, we assume the virus protein can bind to the matched receptor (top). If less than the threshold (ϵ _seqM ) are matched, we assume the virus protein fails to bind the receptor