Rna Higher-Order Structures Within The Coronavirus 5 ' And 3 ' Untranslated Regions And Their Roles In Viral Replication

The 5' and 3' untranslated regions (UTRs) of all coronaviruses contain RNA higher-order structures which play essential roles in viral transcription and replication. In this chapter we present our current knowledge of how those cis-acting elements were defined and their functional roles in viral transcription and replication. Cellular proteins which have been shown binding to those cis-acting elements and potentially support the RNA discontinuous synthesis model are also discussed. A conserved RNA structure model for the 5' and 3' UTRs of group 2 coronaviruses is presented with the known cellular protein binding sites.