May 22, 2020, SEOUL, South Korea — For our first lecture in our ‘Present and Future of Vaccine Development’ series of 2020, we welcomed Professor V. Narry Kim from Seoul National University to present on the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) genome and its transcriptomic architecture.

As the first lecture in the time of COVID-19, our speaker and all attending IVI staff members wore masks and followed physical distancing measures. Please see below for the full seminar abstract.

About the lecture

SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the SARS-CoV-2 genome was reported recently, its transcriptomic architecture is unknown. Utilizing two complementary sequencing techniques, we here present a high-resolution map of the SARS-CoV-2 transcriptome and epitranscriptome. DNA nanoball sequencing shows that the transcriptome is highly complex owing to numerous recombination events. In addition to the canonical genomic and subgenomic RNAs, SARS-CoV-2 produces transcripts encoding unknown ORFs with fusion, deletion, and/or frameshift. Using nanopore direct RNA sequencing, we further find at least 41 RNA modification sites on viral transcripts, with the most frequent motif, AAGAA. Modified RNAs have shorter poly(A) tails than unmodified RNAs, suggesting a link between the modification and the 3′ tail. Functional investigation of the unknown transcripts and RNA modifications discovered in this study will open new directions to our understanding of the life cycle and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2.