The Mechanism of Glycosylation in SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Application in Drug Development

ABSTRACT

Coronavirus ( CoV) is a class of enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses which can infect humans and animals. At the end of 2019, a novel beta-coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 ( Severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2) has started to spread from person to person, and the virus-related disease "COVID-19" ( Coronavirus disease 2019) poses a serious threat to global public health in different countries. Glycosylation is a post-translational modification that exists on proteins, which can affect the protein folding, stability, and the binding between virus and host receptors. Spike ( S) protein determines the tropism of the virus to the host. A plenty of studies have shown that the spike( S) protein in the SARS-CoV-2 envelope and the main receptor on the host cell, Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 ( ACE2), are highly glycosylated proteins. To explore the role of glycosylation in virus infection and host immune response, this review summarizes the infection mechanism of SARS-CoV-2, the glycosylation modifications of recombinant S protein and host receptor protein ACE2, and the effects of glycosylation on the interaction between virus and host cells. Finally, based on the mechanism of glycosylation, we propose novel potential strategies for COVID-19 diagnosis and anti-virus drug development, which provides new directions for the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19.