PropertyValue
?:abstract
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has caused over one million deaths thus far. There is an urgent need for the development of specific viral therapeutics and a vaccine. SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein is highly expressed upon infection and is essential for viral replication, making it a promising target for both antiviral drug and vaccine development. Here, starting from a functional proteomics workflow, we initially catalogued the protein-protein interactions of 21 SARS-CoV-2 proteins in HEK293 cells, finding that the stress granule resident proteins G3BP1 and G3BP2 copurify with N with high specificity. We demonstrate that N protein expression in human cells sequesters G3BP1 and G3BP2 through its physical interaction with these proteins, attenuating stress granule (SG) formation. The ectopic expression of G3BP1 in N-expressing cells was sufficient to reverse this phenotype. Since N is an RNA-binding protein, we performed iCLIP-sequencing experiments in cells, with or without exposure to oxidative stress, to identify the host RNAs targeted by N. Our results indicate that SARS-CoV-2 N protein binds directly to thousands of mRNAs under both conditions. Like the G3BPs stress granule proteins, N was found to predominantly bind its target mRNAs in their 3’UTRs. RNA sequencing experiments indicated that expression of N results in wide-spread gene expression changes in both unstressed and oxidatively stressed cells. We suggest that N regulates host gene expression by both attenuating stress granules and binding directly to target mRNAs.
is ?:annotates of
?:creator
?:doi
  • 10.1101/2020.10.23.342113
?:doi
?:externalLink
?:journal
  • bioRxiv
?:license
  • biorxiv
?:pdf_json_files
  • document_parses/pdf_json/8bb0ded1d6dea31d207bfe1a213e9a7ba7694347.json
?:publication_isRelatedTo_Disease
is ?:relation_isRelatedTo_publication of
?:sha_id
?:source
  • BioRxiv; WHO
?:title
  • SARS-CoV-2 Nucleocapsid protein attenuates stress granule formation and alters gene expression via direct interaction with host mRNAs
?:type
?:year
  • 2020-10-23

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