PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Yu-Sheng Chen
AU  - Shuaiyao Lu
AU  - Bing Zhang
AU  - Tingfu Du
AU  - Wen-Jie Li
AU  - Meng Lei
AU  - Yanan Zhou
AU  - Yong Zhang
AU  - Penghui Liu
AU  - Yong-Qiao Sun
AU  - Yong-Liang Zhao
AU  - Ying Yang
AU  - Xiaozhong Peng
AU  - Yun-Gui Yang
TI  - Comprehensive analysis of RNA-seq and whole genome sequencing data reveals no evidence for SARS-CoV-2 integrating into host genome
AID  - 10.1101/2021.06.06.447293
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.06.06.447293
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/07/2021.06.06.447293.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/07/2021.06.06.447293.full
AB  - SARS-CoV-2, as the causation of severe epidemic of COVID-19, is one kind of positive single-stranded RNA virus with high transmissibility. However, whether or not SARS-CoV-2 can integrate into host genome needs thorough investigation. Here, we performed both RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and whole genome sequencing on SARS-CoV-2 infected human and monkey cells, and investigated the presence of host-virus chimeric events. Through RNA-seq, we did detect the chimeric host-virus reads in the infected cells. But further analysis using mixed libraries of infected cells and uninfected zebrafish embryos demonstrated that these reads are falsely generated during library construction. In support, whole genome sequencing also didn’t identify the existence of chimeric reads in their corresponding regions. Therefore, the evidence for SARS-CoV-2’s integration into host genome is lacking.One-Sentence Summary SARS-CoV-2 does not integrate into host genome through whole genome sequencing.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.