ABSTRACT
The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), was declared a pandemic infection in March 2020. As of December 2020, two COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but there are no effective drugs to treat COVID-19, and pandemic mitigation efforts like physical distancing have had acute social and economic consequences. In this perspective, we discuss how the proteomic research community can leverage technologies and expertise to address the pandemic by investigating four key areas of study in SARS-CoV-2 biology. Specifically, we discuss how (1) mass spectrometry-based structural techniques can overcome limitations and complement traditional structural approaches to inform the dynamic structure of SARS-CoV-2 proteins, complexes, and virions; (2) virus-host protein-protein interaction mapping can identify the cellular machinery required for SARS-CoV-2 replication; (3) global protein abundance and post-translational modification profiling can characterize signaling pathways that are rewired during infection; and (4) proteomic technologies can aid in biomarker identification, diagnostics, and drug development in order to monitor COVID-19 pathology and investigate treatment strategies. Systems-level high-throughput capabilities of proteomic technologies can yield important insights into SARS-CoV-2 biology that are urgently needed during the pandemic, and more broadly, can inform coronavirus virology and host biology.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/prevention & control , Proteome/metabolism , Proteomics/methods , SARS-CoV-2/metabolism , COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/virology , Host-Pathogen Interactions , Humans , Mass Spectrometry/methods , Pandemics , Protein Interaction Maps , Protein Processing, Post-Translational , SARS-CoV-2/physiology , Viral Proteins/metabolismABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a grave threat to public health and the global economy. SARS-CoV-2 is closely related to the more lethal but less transmissible coronaviruses SARS-CoV-1 and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Here, we have carried out comparative viral-human protein-protein interaction and viral protein localization analyses for all three viruses. Subsequent functional genetic screening identified host factors that functionally impinge on coronavirus proliferation, including Tom70, a mitochondrial chaperone protein that interacts with both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 ORF9b, an interaction we structurally characterized using cryo-electron microscopy. Combining genetically validated host factors with both COVID-19 patient genetic data and medical billing records identified molecular mechanisms and potential drug treatments that merit further molecular and clinical study.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/metabolism , Coronavirus Nucleocapsid Proteins/metabolism , Host Microbial Interactions , Mitochondrial Membrane Transport Proteins/metabolism , Protein Interaction Maps , SARS-CoV-2/metabolism , Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome/metabolism , Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus/metabolism , Conserved Sequence , Coronavirus Nucleocapsid Proteins/genetics , Cryoelectron Microscopy , Humans , Mitochondrial Membrane Transport Proteins/genetics , Mitochondrial Precursor Protein Import Complex Proteins , Phosphoproteins/genetics , Phosphoproteins/metabolism , Protein ConformationABSTRACT
The causative agent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has infected millions and killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, highlighting an urgent need to develop antiviral therapies. Here we present a quantitative mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomics survey of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Vero E6 cells, revealing dramatic rewiring of phosphorylation on host and viral proteins. SARS-CoV-2 infection promoted casein kinase II (CK2) and p38 MAPK activation, production of diverse cytokines, and shutdown of mitotic kinases, resulting in cell cycle arrest. Infection also stimulated a marked induction of CK2-containing filopodial protrusions possessing budding viral particles. Eighty-seven drugs and compounds were identified by mapping global phosphorylation profiles to dysregulated kinases and pathways. We found pharmacologic inhibition of the p38, CK2, CDK, AXL, and PIKFYVE kinases to possess antiviral efficacy, representing potential COVID-19 therapies.
Subject(s)
Betacoronavirus/metabolism , Coronavirus Infections/metabolism , Drug Evaluation, Preclinical/methods , Pneumonia, Viral/metabolism , Proteomics/methods , A549 Cells , Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 , Animals , Antiviral Agents/pharmacology , COVID-19 , Caco-2 Cells , Casein Kinase II/antagonists & inhibitors , Casein Kinase II/metabolism , Chlorocebus aethiops , Coronavirus Infections/virology , Cyclin-Dependent Kinases/antagonists & inhibitors , Cyclin-Dependent Kinases/metabolism , HEK293 Cells , Host-Pathogen Interactions , Humans , Pandemics , Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A/genetics , Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A/metabolism , Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinases/metabolism , Phosphoinositide-3 Kinase Inhibitors/pharmacology , Phosphorylation , Pneumonia, Viral/virology , Protein Kinase Inhibitors/pharmacology , Proto-Oncogene Proteins/antagonists & inhibitors , Proto-Oncogene Proteins/metabolism , Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases/antagonists & inhibitors , Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases/metabolism , SARS-CoV-2 , Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/metabolism , Vero Cells , p38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases/antagonists & inhibitors , p38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases/metabolism , Axl Receptor Tyrosine KinaseABSTRACT
A newly described coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has infected over 2.3 million people, led to the death of more than 160,000 individuals and caused worldwide social and economic disruption1,2. There are no antiviral drugs with proven clinical efficacy for the treatment of COVID-19, nor are there any vaccines that prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2, and efforts to develop drugs and vaccines are hampered by the limited knowledge of the molecular details of how SARS-CoV-2 infects cells. Here we cloned, tagged and expressed 26 of the 29 SARS-CoV-2 proteins in human cells and identified the human proteins that physically associated with each of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins using affinity-purification mass spectrometry, identifying 332 high-confidence protein-protein interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and human proteins. Among these, we identify 66 druggable human proteins or host factors targeted by 69 compounds (of which, 29 drugs are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, 12 are in clinical trials and 28 are preclinical compounds). We screened a subset of these in multiple viral assays and found two sets of pharmacological agents that displayed antiviral activity: inhibitors of mRNA translation and predicted regulators of the sigma-1 and sigma-2 receptors. Further studies of these host-factor-targeting agents, including their combination with drugs that directly target viral enzymes, could lead to a therapeutic regimen to treat COVID-19.