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Evolution of enhanced innate immune evasion by SARS-CoV-2

Thorne, LG; Bouhaddou, M; Reuschl, AK; Zuliani-Alvarez, L; Polacco, B; Pelin, A; Batra, J; ... Krogan, NJ; + view all (2022) Evolution of enhanced innate immune evasion by SARS-CoV-2. Nature , 602 pp. 487-495. 10.1038/s41586-021-04352-y. Green open access

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Abstract

Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs) suggests viral adaptation to enhance human-to-human transmission1,2. Although much effort has focused on characterisation of spike changes in VOCs, mutations outside spike likely contribute to adaptation. Here we used unbiased abundance proteomics, phosphoproteomics, RNAseq and viral replication assays to show that isolates of the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant3 more effectively suppress innate immune responses in airway epithelial cells, compared to first wave isolates. We found that Alpha has dramatically increased subgenomic RNA and protein levels of N, Orf9b and Orf6, all known innate immune antagonists. Expression of Orf9b alone suppressed the innate immune response through interaction with TOM70, a mitochondrial protein required for RNA sensing adaptor MAVS activation. Moreover, the activity of Orf9b and its association with TOM70 was regulated by phosphorylation. We propose that more effective innate immune suppression, through enhanced expression of specific viral antagonist proteins, increases the likelihood of successful Alpha transmission, and may increase in vivo replication and duration of infection4. The importance of mutations outside Spike in adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 to humans is underscored by the observation that similar mutations exist in the Delta and Omicron N/Orf9b regulatory regions.

Type: Article
Title: Evolution of enhanced innate immune evasion by SARS-CoV-2
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04352-y
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04352-y
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, Systems biology
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Infection and Immunity
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10142781
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