Coronavirus packaging signal

The Coronavirus packaging signal is a conserved cis-regulatory element found in Coronavirus which has an important role in regulating the packaging of the viral genome into the capsid.

As part of the viral life cycle, within the infected cell, the viral genome becomes associated with viral proteins and assembles into new infective progeny viruses This process is called packaging and is vital for viral replication. This virus has positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome. A short region (190 base pairs) in the viral genome was identified that interacts with a viral envelope protein (protein M) and enables the viral RNA to be specificity packaged into virions.