Coronavirus capping and its impact on the host metabolism

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SARS-CoV-2 caused the COVID-19 pandemic and millions of deaths worldwide. Although vaccines were developed in record time, the natural cycle of immunity is short and the rise of new variants complicates the development of herd immunity. New drugs have been proposed as antivirals however, it is known that viruses also develop drug resistance. Therefore, it is necessary to find new therapeutic targets to cope with SARS-CoV-2 and new zoonotic coronaviruses to prevent new pandemics and another global health crisis. In this regard, a proven therapeutic target that is understudied is the inhibition of viral capping, a process that modifies the 5’UTR of the viral RNA to mimic the mammalian RNA. Capping prevents the degradation of viral RNA, improves translation, and prevents the detection of the innate cell immune system. Viral replication and capping take place in confined double-membrane vesicles (DMV) formed by host membranes and viral non-structural proteins (nsps). These processes cause severe stress and imbalance in the metabolism and bioenergetics of the host cell since high amounts of ATP and S-adenosylmethionine are used. Many metabolic pathways improve their efficiency by forming protein complexes, which avoid product inhibition and move the equilibrium of the reaction to the product. The replication-transcriptional (RTC) complex of SARS-CoV-2 was previously described; however little is known about the capping enzymes (nsp14-nsp10, nsp16-nsp10). Since capping enzymes are methyl transferases (MTases), which are strongly inhibited by the product of the reaction S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH), and this product can only be hydrolyzed by a host SAH-hydrolase (AHCY), the need for host metabolites such as ATP, GTP,SAM and SAH hydrolysis, indicates a possible viral-host hybrid metabolon which is unknown. The overall goal of this proposal is to determine the existence of a hybrid viral-capping-host metabolic pool within the DMVs and the impact of these changes on the bioenergetics of the host. To address these knowledge gaps, we will take an integrated strategy using computational, biochemical, structural, and cell biology approaches. The aims of the proposal are: 1. Determine the existence of a viral methyltransferases-SAH hydrolase metabolon. Using AlphaFold 2 multimer software as a computational approach to predict the interactions of the methyl transferases nsp14-nsp16-nsp10 and nsp14, nsp16, nsp10 with AHCY. In parallel, these interactions will be tested by pull-down assays, using purified proteins and structural biology. Aim 2. Establish the localization of the methyltransferases from coronaviruses and S-adenosylmethionine hydrolase within the DMVs. The co-localization of capping enzymes nsp14, nsp16, and AHCY hydrolase within viral vesicles will be assessed by a time-course of MHV infection using lung-rat epithelial cells (L2), followed by subcellular fractionation, Co-immunoprecipitation as well as confocal microscopy using immunofluorescence. Aim 3. Assess the changes in the glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation of the host upon viral replication and capping. The rate of external acidification (glycolysis-lactate production) and the rate of oxygen consumption (mitochondrial activity) will be measured in L2-MHV-infected cells using a seahorse analyzer. And the interaction of the glycolytic enzymes and mitochondria with SAM-metabolic enzymes and viral proteins in the DMV, will be tested as in aim 2.