RBD Double Mutations of SARS-CoV-2 Strains Increase Transmissibility through Enhanced Interaction between RBD and ACE2 Receptor
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to catastrophic damage for global human health. The initial step of SARS-CoV-2 infection is the binding of the receptor-binding domain (RBD) in its spike protein to the ACE2 receptor in the host cell membrane. Constant evolution of SARS-CoV-2 generates new mutations across its genome including the coding region for the RBD in the spike protein. In addition to the well-known single mutation in the RBD, the recent new mutation strains with an RBD “double mutation” are causing new outbreaks globally, as represented by the delta strain containing RBD L452R/T478K. Although it is considered that the increased transmissibility of double-mutated strains could be attributed to the altered interaction between the RBD and ACE2 receptor, the molecular details remain to be elucidated. Using the methods of molecular dynamics simulation, superimposed structural comparison, free binding energy estimation, and antibody escaping, we investigated the relationship between the ACE2 receptor and the RBD double mutants of L452R/T478K (delta), L452R/E484Q (kappa), and E484K/N501Y (beta, gamma). The results demonstrated that each of the three RBD double mutants altered the RBD structure and enhanced the binding of the mutated RBD to ACE2 receptor. Together with the mutations in other parts of the virus genome, the double mutations increase the transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 to host cells.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.30.458303: (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 Sentences Resources Molecular dynamics simulation: GROMACS version 5.1.2, was used for molecular dynamics simulation (Berendsen et al., 1995). GROMACSsuggested: (GROMACS, RRID:SCR_014565)Superimposed structural comparison: Mutant RBD structures extracted at 100 ns of MD simulations through UCSF CHIMERA were superimposed with the wild type RBD structures to identify the conformation changes using PYMOL. PYMOLsuggested: (PyMOL, RRID:SCR_000305)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 …SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.30.458303: (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 Sentences Resources Molecular dynamics simulation: GROMACS version 5.1.2, was used for molecular dynamics simulation (Berendsen et al., 1995). GROMACSsuggested: (GROMACS, RRID:SCR_014565)Superimposed structural comparison: Mutant RBD structures extracted at 100 ns of MD simulations through UCSF CHIMERA were superimposed with the wild type RBD structures to identify the conformation changes using PYMOL. PYMOLsuggested: (PyMOL, RRID:SCR_000305)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 did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
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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