ATP biphasically modulates LLPS of SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein and specifically binds its RNA-binding domain

SARS-CoV-2 is a highly contagious coronavirus causing the ongoing pandemic. Very recently its genomic RNA of ∼30 kb was decoded to be packaged with nucleocapsid (N) protein into phase separated condensates. Interestingly, viruses have no ability to generate ATP but host cells have very high ATP concentrations of 2–12 mM. A key question thus arises whether ATP modulates liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of the N protein. Here we discovered that ATP not only biphasically modulates LLPS of the viral N protein as we previously found on human FUS and TDP-43, but also dissolves the droplets induced by oligonucleic acid. Residue-specific NMR characterization showed ATP specifically binds the RNA-binding domain (RBD) of the N protein with the average Kd of 3.3 ± 0.4 mM. The ATP-RBD complex structure was constructed by NMR-derived constraints, in which ATP occupies a pocket within the positive-charged surface utilized for binding nucleic acids. Our study suggests that ATP appears to be exploited by SARS-CoV-2 to promote its life cycle by facilitating the uncoating, localizing and packing of its genomic RNA. Therefore the interactions of ATP with the viral RNA and N protein might represent promising targets for design of drugs and vaccines to terminate the pandemic.