Host-Virus Chimeric Events in SARS-CoV-2-Infected Cells Are Infrequent and Artifactual
Bingyu Yan, Srishti Chakravorty, Carmen Mirabelli, Luopin Wang, Jorge L. Trujillo‐Ochoa, Daniel Chauss, Dhaneshwar Kumar, Michail S. Lionakis, Matthew R. Olson, Christiane E. Wobus, Behdad Afzali, Majid Kazemian
Abstract
The pathogenic mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, are not fully understood. In particular, relatively little is known about the reasons some individuals develop life-threatening or persistent COVID-19. Recent studies identified host-virus chimeric (HVC) reads in RNA-sequencing data from SARS-CoV-2-infected cells and suggested that HVC events support potential "human genome invasion" and "integration" by SARS-CoV-2. This suggestion has fueled concerns about the long-term effects of current mRNA vaccines that incorporate elements of the viral genome. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus that does not encode a reverse transcriptase and does not include a nuclear phase in its life cycle, so some doubts have rightfully been expressed regarding the authenticity of HVCs and the role played by endogenous retrotransposons in this phenomenon. Thus, it is important to independently authenticate these HVC events. Here, we provide several lines of evidence suggesting that the observed HVC events are likely artifactual.