The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and its unprecedented global societal and economic disruptive impact has marked the third zoonotic introduction of a highly pathogenic coronavirus into the human population. Although the previous coronavirus SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV epidemics raised awareness of the need for clinically available therapeutic or preventive interventions, to date, no treatments with proven efficacy are available. The development of effective intervention strategies relies on the knowledge of molecular and cellular mechanisms of coronavirus infections, which highlights the significance of studying virus–host interactions at the molecular level to identify targets for antiviral intervention and to elucidate critical viral and host determinants that are decisive for the development of severe disease. In this Review, we summarize the first discoveries that shape our current understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection throughout the intracellular viral life cycle and relate that to our knowledge of coronavirus biology. The elucidation of similarities and differences between SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses will support future preparedness and strategies to combat coronavirus infections.

Coronaviruses (CoV) nucleocapsid N proteins are key in incorporating the genomic RNA into the progeny viral particles. In infected cells, N proteins are present at the replication-transcription complexes (RTCs), the sites of CoV RNA synthesis. It has been shown that N proteins are important for viral replication and that the one of mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), a commonly used CoV model virus, interacts with non-structural protein 3 (nsp3), a component of the RTCs. These two aspects of CoV life cycle, however, have not been linked. We found that the MHV N protein binds exclusively to nsp3 but not with other RTCs components using a systematic yeast two-hybrid approach, and identified two distinct regions in the N protein that redundantly mediates this interaction. A selective N protein variant carrying point mutations in these two regions fail to bind nsp3 in vitro, resulting in an inhibition of its recruitment to the RTCs in vivo. Furthermore, opposite to the wild type N protein, this N protein variant impairs the stimulation of gRNA and viral mRNA transcription in vivo and in vitro, which in turn leads to an impairment in MHV replication and progeny production. Altogether, our results show that N protein recruitment to RTCs, via binding to nsp3, is an essential step in CoV life cycle as it is critical for optimal viral RNA synthesis. IMPORTANCE Coronaviruses (CoV) have been regarded for a long time as a relatively harmless pathogen for humans. Two severe respiratory tract infection outbreaks caused by SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, however, have caused high pathogenicity and mortality rates in humans. This highlighted the relevance of being able to control CoV infections. We used a CoV model virus, mouse hepatitis virus (MHV), to investigate the importance of the recruitment of nucleocapsid (N) protein, a central component of CoV virions, to intracellular platforms where CoV replicate, transcribe and translate their genomes. By identifying the principal binding partner at these intracellular platforms and generating a specific mutant, we found that N protein recruitment to these locations is crucial in promoting viral RNA synthesis. Moreover, blocking this recruitment strongly inhibits viral infection. Thus, our results explain both an important aspect of CoV life cycle and reveal an interaction between viral proteins that could be targeted in antiviral therapies.

Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by Hand Rub Formulations

Coronaviruses are of veterinary and medical importance and include highly pathogenic zoonotic viruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. They are known to efficiently evade early innate immune responses, manifesting in almost negligible expression of type-I interferons (IFN-I). This evasion strategy suggests an evolutionary conserved viral function that has evolved to prevent RNA-based sensing of infection in vertebrate hosts. Here we show that the coronavirus endonuclease (EndoU) activity is key to prevent early induction of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) host cell responses. Replication of EndoU-deficient coronaviruses is greatly attenuated in vivo and severely restricted in primary cells even during the early phase of the infection. In macrophages we found immediate induction of IFN-I expression and RNase L-mediated breakdown of ribosomal RNA. Accordingly, EndoU-deficient viruses can retain replication only in cells that are deficient in IFN-I expression or sensing, and in cells lacking both RNase L and PKR. Collectively our results demonstrate that the coronavirus EndoU efficiently prevents simultaneous activation of host cell dsRNA sensors, such as Mda5, OAS and PKR. The localization of the EndoU activity at the site of viral RNA synthesis–within the replicase complex—suggests that coronaviruses have evolved a viral RNA decay pathway to evade early innate and intrinsic antiviral host cell responses. Coronaviruses are long known to be particularly successful in evading host innate immune responses. This manifests in barely detectable interferon responses during the first hours of infection and greatly facilitates establishment of robust virus replication. This phenotype of early innate immune evasion is common to all coronaviruses and can have detrimental consequences particular for infections with highly pathogenic coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. We therefore hypothesized that there must be an evolutionary conserved viral function that has evolved to prevent sensing of coronavirus infection by infected host cells. Our study now describes this function, namely the highly conserved coronavirus endoribonuclease activity. We found that coronaviruses that lack this enzymatic activity are readily visible to infected host cells that can now mount a swift and potent host response restricting virus replication within hours. Our study provides a new paradigm of a first layer of RNA virus innate immune evasion during the early phase of infection, that takes place at the site of RNA synthesis, and is based on removal of dsRNA that would otherwise trigger the simultaneous activation of cytoplasmic host cell sensors.