Technische Universität München
On the trail of the genetic code - Overlapping gene found in SARS-CoV-2
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NEWS RELEASE
On the trail of the genetic code
Overlapping gene found in SARS-CoV-2
Viruses are infectious organic structures that spread by transmission and can only multiply within a suitable host cell. To understand how new viruses are created, it is necessary to determine the position of the individual genes precisely and comprehensively and to clarify what these genes do. A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has found a previously hidden gene that may have contributed to the unique biology of SARS-CoV-2 and thus to its rapid spread.
Viruses often have so-called overlapping genes, which can easily be overlooked but may play an important role in virus spread, even up to the level of a pandemic. Dr. Zachary Ardern, scientist in the field of Microbial Ecology at the TUM School of Life Sciences talks this interview about his research results.
You do research on overlapping genes. How should one think of your field of research?
At first glance, genes appear to be like written language because they consist of letter strings (nucleotides) that convey information. However, while the individual units of language, that is to say written words, can only be arranged one after the other, genes can be overlapping and multifunctional, with information being cryptically encoded, depending on which letter you start with. Overlapping genes or "genes within genes" are difficult to identify. They are particularly common in viruses that have been refined by natural selection to maximize their replication and thus the information content per nucleotide.
Which question have you investigated specifically with regard to the corona virus?
If overlapping genes with functional significance are overlooked, important aspects of viral biology can be misunderstood. Even before the COVID 19 pandemic, we had developed a method of studying overlapping genes, "OLGenie". This method searches genomes for patterns of genetic alterations that are unique to overlapping genes. We have now applied this as well as other methods to the wealth of new sequence data available for SARS-CoV-2.
What have been your most important results?
We have identified ORF3d, a new overlapping gene in SARS-CoV-2 that has the potential to encode an unexpectedly long protein. We have found that this gene is also present in a previously discovered pangolin coronavirus, which is a relative of SARS-CoV-2. However, the new ORF3d was previously misclassified. As a result, its function was not predicted accurately. We have now described the evolution of this gene in detail, have shown that it is likely functional, and have distinguished it from the various other overlapping genes currently recognized in SARS-CoV-2.
Who could ultimately benefit from the results of your study, and what would need to be done before we could achieve these benefits?
In terms of genome size, SARS-CoV-2 and its many relatives are among the longest RNA viruses in existence and have a very low mutation rate. They may therefore be more susceptible to "genomic tricks" than other RNA viruses. Overlapping genes may be one of the many ways corona viruses have evolved to efficiently replicate, thwart host immunity, and transmit themselves. Knowing that there are overlapping genes and how they work may reveal new ways of controlling coronaviruses with vaccines and antiviral drugs.
Further information:
The team involved was international and was led by three postdoctoral researchers in Taiwan, Freising-Weihenstephan and California. It included TUM-researchers from both the Chair of Microbial Ecology and BayBioMS (Bavarian Center for Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry). The methods used are directly based on years of basic scientific research on overlapping genes at the Chair of Microbial Ecology (Professor Siegfried Scherer).The chair is associated with the ZIEL - Institute for Food and Health.
Publication:
Chase W. Nelson, Zachary Ardern, Tony L Goldberg, Chen Meng, Chen-Hao Kuo, Christina Ludwig, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Xinzhu Wei: Dynamically evolving novel overlapping gene as a factor in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/59633
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Siegfried Scherer
Chair of Microbial Ecology
E-Mail: siegfried.scherer@wzw.tum.de
Tel.: +49 (8161)71-3516
Dr. Zachary Ardern
Scientist at the Chair of Microbial Ecology
E-Mail: zachary.ardern@tum.de
Tel.: +49 (8161)71-3851
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe's leading research universities, with around 600 professors, 44,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany. www.tum.de