RESUMEN
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is responsible for the ongoing global pandemic that has infected more than 31 million people in more than 180 countries worldwide. Like other coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 is thought to have been transmitted to humans from wild animals. Given the scale and widespread geographical distribution of the current pandemic and confirmed cases of cross-species transmission, the question of the extent to which this transmission is possible emerges, as well as what molecular features distinguish susceptible from non-susceptible animal species. Here, we investigated the structural properties of several ACE2 orthologs bound to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. We found that species known not to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection have non-conservative mutations in several ACE2 amino acid residues that disrupt key polar and charged contacts with the viral spike protein. Our models also allow us to predict affinity-enhancing mutations that could be used to design ACE2 variants for therapeutic purposes. Finally, our study provides a blueprint for modeling viral-host protein interactions and highlights several important considerations when designing these computational studies and analyzing their results.
Asunto(s)
COVID-19 , Interacciones Huésped-Patógeno/genética , SARS-CoV-2 , Enzima Convertidora de Angiotensina 2/química , Enzima Convertidora de Angiotensina 2/genética , Enzima Convertidora de Angiotensina 2/metabolismo , Animales , Sitios de Unión/genética , COVID-19/genética , COVID-19/transmisión , COVID-19/veterinaria , COVID-19/virología , Biología Computacional , Secuencia Conservada/genética , Predisposición Genética a la Enfermedad , Humanos , Simulación de Dinámica Molecular , Mutación/genética , SARS-CoV-2/química , SARS-CoV-2/metabolismo , SARS-CoV-2/patogenicidad , Glicoproteína de la Espiga del Coronavirus/química , Glicoproteína de la Espiga del Coronavirus/metabolismo , Zoonosis ViralesRESUMEN
Emergence of coronaviruses poses a threat to global health and economy. The current outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 28,000,000 people and killed more than 915,000. To date, there is no treatment for coronavirus infections, making the development of therapies to prevent future epidemics of paramount importance. To this end, we collected information regarding naturally-occurring variants of the Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), an epithelial receptor that both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 use to enter the host cells. We built 242 structural models of variants of human ACE2 bound to the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 surface spike glycoprotein (S protein) and refined their interfaces with HADDOCK. Our dataset includes 140 variants of human ACE2 representing missense mutations found in genome-wide studies, 39 mutants with reported effects on the recognition of the RBD, and 63 predictions after computational alanine scanning mutagenesis of ACE2-RBD interface residues. This dataset will help accelerate the design of therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2, as well as contribute to prevention of possible future coronaviruses outbreaks.