Alice Douangamath, Daren Fearon, Paul Gehrtz, Tobias Krojer, Petra Lukacik, C. David Owen, Efrat Resnick, Claire Strain-Damerell, Anthony Aimon, Péter Ábrányi-Balogh, José Brandão-Neto, Anna Carbery, Gemma Davison, Alexandre Dias, Thomas D. Downes, Louise Dunnett, Michael Fairhead, James D. Firth, S. Paul Jones, Aaron Keeley, György M. Keserü, Hanna F. Klein, Mathew P. Martin, Martin E. M. Noble, Peter O’Brien, Ailsa Powell, Rambabu N. Reddi, Rachael Skyner, Matthew Snee, Michael J. Waring, Conor Wild, Nir London, Frank von Delft & Martin A. Walsh -
Nat Commun 11, 5047 (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18709-w
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.
