Tales Rocha de Moura, Elżbieta Purta, Agata Bernat, Eva M Martín-Cuevas, Małgorzata Kurkowska, Eugene F Baulin, Sunandan Mukherjee, Jakub Nowak, Artur P Biela, Michał Rawski, Sebastian Glatt, Fernando Moreno-Herrero, Janusz M Bujnicki
Betacoronaviruses are a genus within the Coronaviridae family of RNA viruses. They are capable of infecting vertebrates and causing epidemics as well as global pandemics in humans. Mitigating the threat posed by Betacoronaviruses requires an understanding of their molecular diversity. The development of novel antivirals hinges on understanding the key regulatory elements within the viral RNA genomes, in particular the 5'-proximal region, which is pivotal for viral protein synthesis. Using a combination of cryo-electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, chemical probing, and computational modeling, we determined the structures of 5'-proximal regions in RNA genomes of Betacoronaviruses from four subgenera: OC43-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and Rousettus bat-CoV...
March 1, 2024: Nucleic Acids Research