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. 2020 Oct 28;19(3):155–170. doi: 10.1038/s41579-020-00468-6

Fig. 4. Coronavirus replication and discontinuous transcription.

Fig. 4

Schematic depiction of coronaviral RNA synthesis. Full-length positive-sense genomic RNA is used as a template to produce both full-length negative-sense copies for genome replication and subgenomic negative-sense RNAs (–sgRNA) to produce the subgenomic mRNAs (sg mRNA). The negative strand RNA synthesis involving a template switch from a body transcription regulatory sequences (TRS-B) to the leader TRS (TRS-L) is illustrated to produce one sg mRNA. This process can take place at any TRS-B and will collectively result in the production of the characteristic nested set of coronaviral mRNAs.