RESUMEN
Effective control of COVID-19 requires antivirals directed against SARS-CoV-2 virus. Here we assess ten available HCV protease inhibitor drugs as potential SARS-CoV-2 antivirals. There is a striking structural similarity of the substrate binding clefts of SARS- CoV-2 Mpro and HCV NS3/4A proteases, and virtual docking experiments show that all ten HCV drugs can potentially bind into the Mpro binding cleft. Seven of these HCV drugs inhibit SARS-CoV-2 Mpro protease activity, while four dock well into the PLpro substrate binding cleft and inhibit PLpro protease activity. These same seven HCV drugs inhibit SARS-CoV-2 virus replication in Vero and/or human cells, demonstrating that HCV drugs that inhibit Mpro, or both Mpro and PLpro, suppress virus replication. Two HCV drugs, simeprevir and grazoprevir synergize with the viral polymerase inhibitor remdesivir to inhibit virus replication, thereby increasing remdesivir inhibitory activity as much as 10-fold. HighlightsO_LISeveral HCV protease inhibitors are predicted to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 Mpro and PLpro. C_LIO_LISeven HCV drugs inhibit Mpro enzyme activity, four HCV drugs inhibit PLpro. C_LIO_LISeven HCV drugs inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in Vero and/or human cells. C_LIO_LIHCV drugs simeprevir and grazoprevir synergize with remdesivir to inhibit SARS- CoV-2. C_LI eTOC blurbBafna, White and colleagues report that several available hepatitis C virus drugs inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro and/or PLpro proteases and SARS-CoV-2 replication in cell culture. Two drugs, simeprevir and grazoprevir, synergize with the viral polymerase inhibitor remdesivir to inhibit virus replication, increasing remdesivir antiviral activity as much as 10-fold. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=185 HEIGHT=200 SRC="FIGDIR/small/422511v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (35K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1c12181org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@7ed993org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1fe56aaorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@ebc34e_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG
Asunto(s)
COVID-19RESUMEN
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has no vaccine or antiviral drugs available to the public, at the time of writing. The virus non-structural proteins are promising drug targets because of their vital role in the viral cycle. A significant body of work has been focused on finding inhibitors which covalently and competitively bind the active site of the non-structural proteins, but little has been done to address regions other than the active site, i.e. for non-competitive inhibition. Here we extend previous work on the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro (nsp5) to three other SARS-CoV-2 proteins: host shutoff factor (nsp1), papain-like protease (nsp3, also known as PLpro) and RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase (nsp12, also known as RdRp) in complex with nsp7 and nsp8 cofactors. Using open-source software (DDPT) to construct Elastic Network Models (ENM) of the chosen proteins we analyse their fluctuation dynamics and thermodynamics, as well as using this protein family to study convergence and robustness of the ENM. Exhaustive 2-point mutational scans of the ENM and their effect on fluctuation free energies suggest several new candidate regions, distant from the active site, for control of the proteins function, which may assist the drug development based on the current small molecule binding screens. The results also provide new insights, including non-additive effects of double-mutation or inhibition, into the active biophysical research field of protein fluctuation allostery and its underpinning dynamical structure.