ABSTRACT
An outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19 respiratory disease, has infected over 290,000 people since the end of 2019, killed over 12,000, and caused worldwide social and economic disruption1,2. There are currently no antiviral drugs with proven efficacy nor are there vaccines for its prevention. Unfortunately, the scientific community has little knowledge of the molecular details of SARS-CoV-2 infection. To illuminate this, we cloned, tagged and expressed 26 of the 29 viral proteins in human cells and identified the human proteins physically associated with each using affinity-purification mass spectrometry (AP-MS), which identified 332 high confidence SARS-CoV-2-human protein-protein interactions (PPIs). Among these, we identify 66 druggable human proteins or host factors targeted by 69 existing FDA-approved drugs, drugs in clinical trials and/or preclinical compounds, that we are currently evaluating for efficacy in live SARS-CoV-2 infection assays. The identification of host dependency factors mediating virus infection may provide key insights into effective molecular targets for developing broadly acting antiviral therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 and other deadly coronavirus strains.
ABSTRACT
α1-Antitrypsin (α1-AT) belongs to serine protease inhibitor (Serpin) superfamily and is the main protease inhibitor in human circulation. It can inhibit many proteases to protect tissues from digradation. The mutant Z (Glu342Lys) of α1-AT predisposes to the early onset of emphysema due to decreased functional α1-AT in the lung and to neonatal hepatitis due to accumulation of α1-AT polymers in the endoplasmic reticulum of hepatocytes, which disrupts the balance between protease and protease inhibitors. This paper reviews recent research progress on the pathogenic mechanism and the prognosis of α1-antitrypsin deficiency.