What is it about?
All viruses have genes that get turned into protein products. One of these products for SARS-CoV-2, and all coronaviruses, is the Mac1 protein. In this report, our lab used genetic technologies to remove this protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus to determine how it impacts infection. Ultimately, we found that virus lacking Mac1 does not replicate well and is unable to cause disease in mice. These results indicate that Mac1 is a potential drug target for coronaviruses and that a virus lacking Mac1 could be a live-attenuated vaccine candidate.
Featured Image
Photo by CDC on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Our findings strongly demonstrate that the Mac1 protein could be a target for novel anti-viral therapeutics, especially considering that all CoVs make this protein. It also indicates that the virus lacking Mac1 could be an innovative approach to developing a unique live-attenuated vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. Finally, our data also indicate that SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses likely evolved to have a gene with the same function as Mac1. It will be of interest to determine what that gene is and ultimately what are all of Mac1's functions during infection.
Perspectives
This was a fantastic collaboration between the Dr. Channappanavar lab at Oklahoma State and my lab at the University of Kansas. All of my graduate students and post-docs contributed to the work, which is especially exciting for me. I hope that this article brings increased attention to this small protein domain that all coronaviruses make and could illuminate new biology related to this protein.
Anthony Fehr
University of Kansas
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: SARS-CoV-2 Mac1 is required for IFN antagonism and efficient virus replication in cell culture and in mice, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2023, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2302083120.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
