Computational Design of Peptides to Block Binding of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein to Human ACE2
Xiaoqiang Huang, Robin Pearce, Yang Zhang
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.28.013607
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 has now become a global pandemic and it continues to spread rapidly worldwide, severely threatening lives and economic stability. Making the problem worse, there is no specific antiviral drug that can be used to treat COVID-19 to date. SARS-CoV-2 initiates its entry into human cells by binding to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) via the receptor binding domain (RBD) of its spike protein. Therefore, molecules that can block SARS-CoV-2 from binding to hACE2 may potentially prevent the virus from entering human cells and serve as an effective antiviral drug. Based on this idea, we designed a series of peptides that can strongly bind to SARS-CoV-2 RBD in computational experiments.
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