A new study describes how the functioning of RNA changes in cells infected by SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus. The findings provide clues as to how different variants can escape the immune system, and serve as a basis for the development of novel treatments. For the first time, scientists have sho
changes in cells infected byvirus. The findings provide clues as to how different variants can escape the immune system, and serve as a basis for the development of novel treatments.
“Our first important finding in this study was that infection by SARS-CoV-2 increases the level of m6a [], a type of methylation, in host cells compared with non-infected cells,” Marcelo Briones, last author of the article, told Agência FAPESP. Briones is a professor at UNIFESP’s Medical School and a researcher affiliated with its Center for Medical Bioinformatics.
In both studies, the researchers analyzed m6a because it is the most common type of RNA nucleotide modification and is involved in several significant processes, such as intracellular location and protein translation. RNA nucleotides contain nitrogenous bases running along a single strand. The team also discovered that different strains of the virus displayed variations in the sequences of nitrogenous bases in their nucleotides. “Some strains may be much more methylated than others.
After completing their investigation of how SARS-CoV-2 modifies m6A in host cells, the scientists’ next step will be to analyze the stored data in search of a correlation between viral RNA methylation levels and the number of viruses released from each infected cell, known as viral burst size.
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