Viral Protease Nsp5 Hijacks La Autoantigen to Orchestrate the Translation to Replication Transition in SARS-CoV-2
It is demonstrated that human La autoantigen (La protein) specifically binds to GCAC sequence near the initiator AUG within the 5’UTR of SARS-CoV-2 RNA promoting viral non-structural protein synthesis by cap independent translation, while suppressing replication early in infection.