Researchers in the United States have shown that genes from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) – can be integrated into the genome of infected human cells.
The team says the viral RNA can be expressed as chimeric transcripts with fused cellular and viral sequences.
“Importantly, such chimeric transcripts are detected in patient-derived tissues,” writes the team from the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland.
