Can poly(A) tail length be used in determining how long ago infection with a coronavirus occurred in humans?
An interesting (2013) paper on the Bovine Coronavirus (BCoV) found that the poly(A) length of the virus "tail" correlated with the time since infection.
Sequencing showed the length of viral poly(A) represented in the major population of viral RNA varied from ~45 nt early in infection (0-2 hpi) to ~65 nt later (4-12 hpi) and then gradually decreased to ~40 nt over time (12-48 hpi) (Figure [below]). The length of viral poly(A) tail became ~<30 nt after 144 h of infection. The data together suggest that the poly(A) tail length on total positive-strand BCoV RNA is regulated during infection.
Has anything like this been observed for [any] human coronaviruses? And if so were/are there proposals to use this correlation for some purpose, e.g. determining when someone was infected, which may help e.g. also establish where so with whom they came in contact with around the time of infection, i.e. help with contact tracing?
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