SARS-CoV-2 ORF6 disturbs nucleocytoplasmic trafficking to advance the viral replication

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. ORF6 is known to antagonize the interferon signaling by inhibiting the nuclear translocation of STAT1. Here we show that ORF6 acts as a virulence factor through two distinct strategies. First, ORF6 directly interacts with STAT1 in an IFN-independent manner to inhibit its nuclear translocation. Second, ORF6 directly binds to importin α1, which is a nuclear transport factor encoded by KPNA2, leading to a significant suppression of importin α1-mediated nuclear transport. Furthermore, we found that KPNA2 knockout enhances the viral replication, suggesting that importin α1 suppresses the viral propagation. Additionally, the analyses of gene expression data revealed that importin α1 levels decreased significantly in the lungs of older individuals. Taken together, SARS-CoV-2 ORF6 disrupts the nucleocytoplasmic trafficking to accelerate the viral replication, resulting in the disease progression, especially in older individuals.

Improved understanding of biorisk for research involving microbial modification using annotated sequences of concern

“…Orf6 associated with importin karyopherin-alpha2 (KPNA2) to inhibit translocation of IRF3 to the nucleus (Xia et al, 2020). The C-terminus of Orf6 directly binds to STAT1 resulting in its exclusion from the host nucleus (Miyamoto et al, 2022).…”

“…Manipulate host translation (Gordon et al, 2020;Addetia et al, 2021); Suppress host immune signaling (Lei et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020, 8;Xia et al, 2020;Yuen et al, 2020;Miyamoto et al, 2022); PATHGO:0000006 (modulates protein synthesis in another organism) (Gordon et al, 2020); PATHGO: 0000382 (suppresses interferon signaling in another organism) (Xia et al, 2020);…”