Fig. 2. Life cycle of coronaviruses under iron replete and deficiency conditions. (a) Sufficient intracellular iron levels support coronavirus replication, whereas (b) iron deficiency undermines its replication process by interfering with viral transcription, translation, assembly, and exocytosis. CoVs enter into host cells via binding to various receptors and disassemble to release the viral genome and nucleocapsid.²¹.