Thiol-based chemical probes exhibit antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 via allosteric disulfide disruption in the spike glycoprotein

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Abstract

Some coronaviruses utilize angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) for entry into host cells. Although reducing agents, such as N -acetylcysteine, disrupt viral binding to ACE2 in general, these compounds are cytotoxic, have low potency, and because of their membrane permeability, have undefined mechanism of action. With qualitative chemoproteomic mapping to delineate cysteine thiol/disulfide reactivity in native spike and recombinant receptor binding domain (RBD), we report nontoxic, cell-impermeable thiol-based chemical probes that significantly decrease the ACE2 binding and infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. We map the reactive cysteines and show the dynamic consequences of breaking allosteric disulfide bonds in the RBD. Altogether, our work underscores a clear redox-based mechanism of antiviral activity in which reducing compounds disrupt key RBD disulfides specifically in extracellular spaces.

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  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.01.450701: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.


    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    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 found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.


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