Distant residues modulate conformational opening in SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

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Abstract

The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic resulted in the largest public health crisis in recent times. Significant drug design effort against SARS-CoV-2 is focused on the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein, although this region is highly prone to mutations causing therapeutic resistance. We applied deep data analysis methods on all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to identify key non-RBD residues that play a crucial role in spike−receptor binding and infection. Because the non-RBD residues are typically conserved across multiple coronaviruses, they can be targeted by broad-spectrum antibodies and drugs to treat infections from new strains that might appear during future epidemics.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.07.415596: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The alignment was analyzed with the ConSurf server51 to derive conservation scores for each residue position in the alignment.
    ConSurf
    suggested: (ConSurf Database, RRID:SCR_002320)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on pages 18 and 15. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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