In-Depth Bioinformatic Analyses of Nidovirales Including Human SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV Viruses Suggest Important Roles of Non-canonical Nucleic Acid Structures in Their Lifecycles

Frontiers in Microbiology

卷:11

Petr Pečinka¹  Kateřina Malachová¹  Jiří Červeň¹  Martin Bartas¹  Tereza Stachurová¹  Eva B. Jagelská²  Natália Bohálová³  Alessio Cantara³  Adriana Volná⁴  Otília Porubiaková⁵  Václav Brázda⁵ 

[1] Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia;

[2] Department of Biophysical Chemistry and Molecular Oncology, Institute of Biophysics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Brno, Czechia;

[3] Department of Experimental Biology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia;

[4] Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia;

[5] Faculty of Chemistry, Brno University of Technology, Brno, Czechia;

关键词: coronavirus;    genome;    RNA;    G-quadruplex;    inverted repeats;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmicb.2020.01583

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Non-canonical nucleic acid structures play important roles in the regulation of molecular processes. Considering the importance of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, we decided to evaluate genomes of all coronaviruses sequenced to date (stated more broadly, the order Nidovirales) to determine if they contain non-canonical nucleic acid structures. We discovered much evidence of putative G-quadruplex sites and even much more of inverted repeats (IRs) loci, which in fact are ubiquitous along the whole genomic sequence and indicate a possible mechanism for genomic RNA packaging. The most notable enrichment of IRs was found inside 5′UTR for IRs of size 12+ nucleotides, and the most notable enrichment of putative quadruplex sites (PQSs) was located before 3′UTR, inside 5′UTR, and before mRNA. This indicates crucial regulatory roles for both IRs and PQSs. Moreover, we found multiple G-quadruplex binding motifs in human proteins having potential for binding of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Non-canonical nucleic acids structures in Nidovirales and in novel SARS-CoV-2 are therefore promising druggable structures that can be targeted and utilized in the future.

【 授权许可】

Unknown