Journal
CELL REPORTS
Volume 36, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109530
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Funding
- Queensland Health - Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarships
- NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellowship [GNT1108258]
- Australian Infectious Disease Research Centre
- Australian Department of Health Medical Research Future Fund [APP1202445-2020, MRF1175457]
- NHMRC Investigator Grant [GNT1173711]
- Mater Foundation
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The study proposed that SARS-CoV-2 hijacks the LINE-1 retrotransposition machinery, but no evidence of virus integration into the genome was found in infected cells. Experiments demonstrated reliable resolution of retrotransposon and exogenous virus insertions by ONT sequencing, suggesting SARS-CoV-2 integration events are extremely rare in vivo and unlikely to drive oncogenesis or explain post-recovery detection of the virus.
A recent study proposed that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) hijacks the LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposition machinery to integrate into the DNA of infected cells. If confirmed, this finding could have significant clinical implications. Here, we apply deep (>503) long-read Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) sequencing to HEK293T cells infected with SARS-CoV-2 and do not find the virus integrated into the genome. By examining ONT data from separate HEK293T cultivars, we completely resolve 78 L1 insertions arising in vitro in the absence of L1 overexpression systems. ONT sequencing applied to hepatitis B virus (HBV)-positive liver cancer tissues located a single HBV insertion. These experiments demonstrate reliable resolution of retrotransposon and exogenous virus insertions by ONT sequencing. That we find no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 integration suggests that such events are, at most, extremely rare in vivo and therefore are unlikely to drive oncogenesis or explain post-recovery detection of the virus.
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