Genome-wide mapping of SARS-CoV-2 RNA structures identifies therapeutically-relevant elements.

ABSTRACT: SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus with a linear single-stranded, positive-sense RNA genome, whose outbreak caused the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The ability of coronaviruses to rapidly evolve, adapt, and cross species barriers makes the development of effective and durable therapeutic strategies a challenging and urgent need. As for other RNA viruses, genomic RNA structures are expected to play crucial roles in several steps of the coronavirus replication cycle. Despite this, only a handful of functionally-conserved coronavirus structural RNA elements have been identified to date. Here, we performed RNA structure probing to obtain single-base resolution secondary structure maps of the full SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus genome both in vitro and in living infected cells. Probing data recapitulate the

SUBMITTER: Manfredonia I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7736786 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature