Author(s): Zhen Zong Lim*, Alexkumar Rajanayagam, Elif Tuncay and Michael Fu
The recent outbreak of the novel SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in a worldwide pandemic and left healthcare systems scrambling to cope with the sheer magnitude of the disease outbreak. Taxonomic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 showed it to be a successor of SARS-CoV which caused the 2003 SARS pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 viral entry into host cells is similar to related coronaviruses SARS-CoV and HCoV-NL63, with all three viruses utilizing Spike (S) glycoprotein to interact with ACE2 receptor. SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV S glycoprotein also shares 77-80% primary amino acid sequence identity. Several therapeutics have been developed and shown to be effective against SARS-CoV and HCOV-NL63 viral entry. As such, we investigated the therapeutics targeting SARS-CoV and HCOV-NL63 coronavirus S glycoproteins for possible usage against SARS-CoV-2.
