“Aside from understanding the shape that the virus takes when inside human cells, recent work has also shown that its shapes are also very important for drugs targeting the RNA, which was what prompted us to start this project,” Dr Wan Yue, group leader of the Laboratory of RNA Genomics and Structure was quoted as saying.
‘The virus RNA can interact with a lot of the human cell’s RNA to make use of it for its own survival.’
The findings were published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
While a lot of research has gone into how antibodies interact with the virus proteins and its genome, little is known about how the virus interacts with human RNA once it infects a cell.
In the new study, the team learnt that the virus binds with a small nucleolar RNA, or snoRNA, to steal its modification abilities. This helps to stabilise the virus, making it more successful in infecting the host cells.
The snoRNA modifies the body’s translation machinery to enable the body to produce protein properly.
The findings can help to inform other researchers on the regions in the virus RNA that can be targeted for drug development, Yue said.
The team had also compared the structures of the original, or wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus, with a variant, and found that the latter has a region of its RNA deleted.
They also found shape differences between the wild type and the variant, the researchers said.
Source: IANS
