A Comprehensive Human cDNA Library For Functional Gene Replacement in Drosophila

PROJECT Summary: The recent pandemic of COVID-19 due to infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has created an urgentneed to understand the biological mechanisms of pathogenesis of this new disease. The SARS-CoV-2 is acoronavirus with a slightly less than 30 kilobases (kb) long RNA genome that encodes 26 proteins that interactwith several hundred human proteins and initiate a number of pathogenic steps. Here we use the geneticmodel Drosophila melanogaster to understand gene and protein function involved in COVID-19. We willgenerate a library of UAS-cDNA constructs and transgenic flies to express and functionally assess the viralproteins. We will also generate transgenic flies for over 300 genes in the human genome involved in viralreplication and COVID-19 disease. We will generate Drosophila reagents for the Drosophila homologs of thesehuman genes using a unique drop-in technology and we will update the online hub for the dissemination ofthese resources to Drosophila labs throughout the world.