SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 Proteins and Enzymes

SARS-CoV-2 Open Reading Frame 8 (ORF8) is one of the nine downstream accessory protein open reading frames of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of COVID-19 (1). SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 is 121 amino acids (aa) in length with a theoretical molecular weight of 13.8 kDa (2, 3). One particular difference between SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV is that SARS-CoV-2 has one ORF8 protein, while SARS-CoV has two ORF8 proteins (ORF8a and ORF8b) (3). The aa sequence alignment ...