Rapid Degradation of SARS-CoV-2 Spike S Protein by A Specific Serine Protease

oleh: Jiankai Liu, Mujie Kan, Lianzhi Zhang, Yuan Yue, Shaohua Wang, Min Hong, Xinyu Hong

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-03-01

Deskripsi

The S protein of SARS-CoV-2 is a crucial structural and functional component for virus entry. Due to the constant mutation of the virus, there are very limited ways to prevent and control COVID-19. This experiment used a macroscopic SDS-PAGE method and proved that the S protein of wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus, especially the S1 subunit, is very sensitive to alkaline serine protease with acidic pI (ASPNJ), NJ represents <i>Neanthes japonica</i> (Izuka) from which ASP is purified). ASPNJ cleaves proteins when the carbonyl group of the peptide bond is contributed by arginine or lysine. ASPNJ can degrade the S protein very quickly and effectively in vitro with relative selectivity. It can be inferred that the S, S1 and RBD of SARS-CoV-2 variants can also be easily degraded by ASPNJ. This rapid and strong degradation of the S protein by ASPNJ may become a potential new treatment strategy.