The continuing discovery on the evidence for RNA editing in SARS-CoV-2.

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have presented strong evidence that C-to-U RNA editing is the driving force that fuels severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) evolution. The findings finally ended the long-term debate on the evolutionary driving force behind SARS-CoV-2 evolution. Here, we would first acknowledge the breakthroughs made by the recent works, such as using the global SARS-CoV-2 data to demonstrate the major mutation source of this virus. Meanwhile, we would raise a few concerns on the accuracy of their interpretation on C-to-U RNA editing. By re-analysing the SARS-CoV-2 population data, we found that the editing frequency on C-to-U sites did not perfectly correlate with the binding motif of the editing enzyme APOBEC, suggesting that there might be false-positive sites among the C-to-U mutations or the original data did not fully represent the novel mutation rate. We hope our work could help people understand the molecular basis underlying SARS-CoV-2 mutation and also be useful to guide future studies on SARS-CoV-2 evolution.