Coronavirus packaging signal

Coronavirus packaging signal
Predicted secondary structure and sequence conservation of Corona_package
Identifiers
Symbol	Corona_package
Rfam	RF00182
Other data
RNA type	Cis-reg
Domain(s)	Viruses
SO	0000233

The Coronavirus packaging signal is a conserved cis-regulatory element found in Coronavirus which has an important role in regulating the packaging of the viral genome into the capsid.

As part of the viral life cycle, within the infected cell, the viral genome becomes associated with viral proteins and assembles into new infective progeny viruses This process is called packaging and is vital for viral replication. This virus has positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome. A short region (190 base pairs) in the viral genome was identified that interacts with a viral envelope protein (protein M) and enables the viral RNA to be specificity packaged into virions ^[1][2].

Other RNA families identified in the coronavirus include the SL-III cis-acting replication element (CRE), the coronavirus frameshifting stimulation element, the coronavirus 3' stem-loop II-like motif (s2m) and the coronavirus 3' UTR pseudoknot.

See also

• Bacteriophage pRNA

References

1. ^ Qin L, Xiong B, Luo C, et al. (2003). "Identification of probable genomic packaging signal sequence from SARS-CoV genome by bioinformatics analysis". Acta Pharmacol. Sin. 24 (6): 489–96. PMID 12791173. 
2. ^ Narayanan K, Makino S (2001). "Cooperation of an RNA packaging signal and a viral envelope protein in coronavirus RNA packaging". J. Virol. 75 (19): 9059–67. doi:10.1128/JVI.75.19.9059-9067.2001. PMC 114474. PMID 11533169. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=114474. 

External links

• Rfam page for Coronavirus packaging signal