Why the study?
APOBEC deaminases display antiviral editing against multiple virus types, but their role and evolutionary impact in RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses required synthesis.
Synthesizes evidence on APOBEC-mediated genome editing in coronaviruses, highlighting its potential role in driving viral evolution and long-term genomic changes.
APOBEC editing may shape coronavirus evolution; leaves open its contribution to SARS-CoV-2 adaptation and seasonal strain genomics.
Members of the APOBEC family of cytidine deaminases show antiviral activities in mammalian cells through lethal editing in the genomes of small DNA viruses, herpesviruses and retroviruses, and potentially those of RNA viruses such as coronaviruses. Consistent with the latter, APOBEC-like directional C→U transitions of genomic plus-strand RNA are greatly overrepresented in SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences of variants emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic. A C→U mutational process may leave evolutionary imprints on coronavirus genomes, including extensive homoplasy from editing and reversion at targeted sites and the occurrence of driven amino acid sequence changes in viral proteins. If sustained over longer periods, this process may account for the previously reported marked global depletion of C and excess of U bases in human seasonal coronavirus genomes. This review synthesizes the current knowledge on APOBEC evolution and function and the evidence of their role in APOBEC-mediated genome editing of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses.
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Ratcliff et al. (2021) studied this question.
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