Across the world, scientists are working frantically to develop effective therapies and vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection.
A new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv* in October 2020 reports the discovery of important viral genomic features that are crucial to its replication in the human airway cells, and its enhancing mutations which increase the rate of replication and determine its target cells.
This discovery suggests that SARS-CoV-2’s small envelope (E) glycoprotein has important specific functions in human respiratory cells, as well as in vivo, and further indicates that residues at positions 5 and 6 play key roles in E activities in human cells.
