Effect of Mac1 deletion mutant of SARS-CoV-2 infection of K18-hACE2 mice

One of the well conserved proteins in coronaviridae family is the macrodomain (Mac1) which is responsible for ADP-ribohydrolase activity. This protein was known to be crucial for murine and human coronavirus virulence and is considered to be potential drug target in SARS antiviral drug development efforts. So it is impretive to understand how deletion of Mac1 impacts replication and pathogenesis of different coronaviruses. K18-hACE2 mice were infected with 2.5x104 PFU SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan strain and its corresponding Mac1 deletion mutant virus and lungs were harvested 1 day post infection. RNA was isolated using trizol method and transcriptome was sequenced using Nextseq2000 yielding 50 bp paired end reads.