A high-resolution temporal atlas of the SARS-CoV-2 translatome and transcriptome

Abstract

Here, Kim et al. apply various sequencing techniques (RPF-seq, QTI-seq, mRNA-seq, sRNA-seq) to unravel the high-resolution, longitudinal translatome and transcriptome of SARS-CoV-2. They identify a translation initiation site in the leader sequence of all genomic and subgenomic RNAs and show its relevance for the SARS-CoV-2 translatome. COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which infected >200 million people resulting in >4 million deaths. However, temporal landscape of the SARS-CoV-2 translatome and its impact on the human genome remain unexplored. Here, we report a high-resolution atlas of the translatome and transcriptome of SARS-CoV-2 for various time points after infecting human cells. Intriguingly, substantial amount of SARS-CoV-2 translation initiates at a novel translation initiation site (TIS) located in the leader sequence, termed TIS-L. Since TIS-L is included in all the genomic and subgenomic RNAs, the SARS-CoV-2 translatome may be regulated by a sophisticated interplay between TIS-L and downstream TISs. TIS-L functions as a strong translation enhancer for ORF S, and as translation suppressors for most of the other ORFs. Our global temporal atlas provides compelling insight into unique regulation of the SARS-CoV-2 translatome and helps comprehensively evaluate its impact on the human genome.