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COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, lacks effective therapeutics. Additionally, no antiviral drugs or vaccines were developed against the closely related coronavirus, SARS-CoV-1 or MERS-CoV, despite previous zoonotic outbreaks. To identify starting points for such therapeutics, we performed a large-scale screen of electrophile and non-covalent fragments through a combined mass spectrometry and X-ray approach against the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, one of two cysteine viral proteases essential for viral replication. Our crystallographic screen identified 71 hits that span the entire active site, as well as 3 hits at the dimer interface. These structures reveal routes to rapidly develop more potent inhibitors through merging of covalent and non-covalent fragment hits; one series of low-reactivity, tractable covalent fragments were progressed to discover improved binders. These combined hits offer unprecedented structural and reactivity information for on-going structure-based drug design against SARS-CoV-2 main protease.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/s41467-020-18709-w

Type

Journal article

Journal

Nature communications

Publication Date

07/10/2020

Volume

11

Addresses

Diamond Light Source Ltd., Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, OX11 0QX, UK.

Keywords

Cysteine Endopeptidases, Peptide Fragments, Viral Nonstructural Proteins, Crystallography, X-Ray, Binding Sites, Catalytic Domain, Protein Conformation, Drug Design, Models, Molecular, Mass Spectrometry, Small Molecule Libraries, Static Electricity, Betacoronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, Coronavirus 3C Proteases