Omoru, Okiemute BeatricePereira, FilipeJanga, Sarath ChandraManzourolajdad, Amirhossein2023-09-012023-09-012022-09-01Omoru OB, Pereira F, Janga SC, Manzourolajdad A. A Putative long-range RNA-RNA interaction between ORF8 and Spike of SARS-CoV-2. PLoS One. 2022;17(9):e0260331. Published 2022 Sep 1. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260331https://hdl.handle.net/1805/35317SARS-CoV-2 has affected people worldwide as the causative agent of COVID-19. The virus is related to the highly lethal SARS-CoV-1 responsible for the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak in Asia. Research is ongoing to understand why both viruses have different spreading capacities and mortality rates. Like other beta coronaviruses, RNA-RNA interactions occur between different parts of the viral genomic RNA, resulting in discontinuous transcription and production of various sub-genomic RNAs. These sub-genomic RNAs are then translated into other viral proteins. In this work, we performed a comparative analysis for novel long-range RNA-RNA interactions that may involve the Spike region. Comparing in-silico fragment-based predictions between reference sequences of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 revealed several predictions amongst which a thermodynamically stable long-range RNA-RNA interaction between (23660-23703 Spike) and (28025-28060 ORF8) unique to SARS-CoV-2 was observed. The patterns of sequence variation using data gathered worldwide further supported the predicted stability of the sub-interacting region (23679-23690 Spike) and (28031-28042 ORF8). Such RNA-RNA interactions can potentially impact viral life cycle including sub-genomic RNA production rates.en-USAttribution 4.0 InternationalCOVID-19Viral genomeViral RNASARS-CoV-2Coronavirus spike glycoproteinViral proteinsArticle