ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025
SARS-CoV-2 nsp15 enhances viral virulence by subverting host antiviral defenses.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Coronavirus Nsp15 endoribonuclease: linking viral RNA regulation to immune evasion and viral fitness.Journal of virology · 2026Review
- Identification of Nsp15 inhibitors restoring interferon-dependent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2.Antiviral research · 2026Article
- Antagonism of stress granules key for SARS-CoV-2 infection and pathogenesis.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Nsp15 facilitates immune evasion and viral replication by limiting multiple host innate immune pathways, including cGAS-STING.The Journal of general virology · 2026Article
- Metal ions govern coronavirus endoribonuclease activity.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Rewriting the viral script: post-translational modifications orchestrating SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis and immune evasion.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- SARS-CoV-2 EndoU-ribonuclease regulates RNA recombination and impacts viral fitness.Nature communications · 2025Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Nsp15 endoribonuclease subverts host defenses to enhance viral fitness in lung cells.Journal of virology · 2025Article
- Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRRs) Expression and Activation in COVID-19 and Long COVID: From SARS-CoV-2 Escape Mechanisms to Emerging PRR-Targeted Immunotherapies.Microorganisms · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
24 authors.
Funding
Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 encodes numerous virulence factors, yet their precise mechanisms of action remain unknown. We provide evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 nonstructural protein 15 (nsp15) enhances viral virulence by suppressing the production of viral double-stranded (dsRNA), a potent inducer of antiviral signaling. The viral variants lacking nsp15 endoribonuclease activity elicited higher innate immune responses and exhibited reduced replication in human stem cell-derived lung alveolar type II epithelial cells, as well as in the lungs of infected hamsters. Consistently, these variants caused significantly less weight loss and mortality compared to wild-type (WT) virus in K18-hACE2 mice. Mechanistically, the cells infected with nsp15 mutants accumulated more viral dsRNA, causing enhanced stimulation of the interferon pathway. Chemical inhibition of interferon signaling dampened immune responses to nsp15 mutants and restored their replication to levels similar to the WT virus. These findings indicate that the endoribonuclease activity of nsp15 contributes to viral virulence by limiting the accumulation of viral dsRNA, thereby allowing robust replication with reduced activation of the host innate immune response.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.