An international group of scientists from the United States and Poland named the weak point of SARS-CoV-2, which could become a target for new drugs. It turned out that the coronavirus uses “molecular scissors”, without which it will not be able to multiply and turn off human proteins that are important for the immune response. This is reported in an article published in the journal Science Advances.
“Molecular scissors” is the SARS-CoV-2-PLpro enzyme, which stimulates the release of proteins necessary for viral replication, and also inhibits molecules such as cytokines and chemokines, which act as signals to activate the immune system to attack an infection. The enzyme cleaves ubiquitin and ISG15, disrupting their function.
Researchers have found that SARS-CoV-2-PLpro can be blocked by two inhibitors – VIR250 and VIR251. These compounds only recognize the coronavirus protein and do not respond to other similar proteins in the human body.
The way SARS-CoV-2-PLpro works distinguishes the new coronavirus from SARS-CoV-1 and MERS, which have similar enzymes. However, scientists do not know if this feature plays a decisive role in the fact that coronaviruses affect humans in different ways.
