2. Academic Validation
  3. Structure and inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease reveal strategy for developing dual inhibitors against Mpro and cathepsin L

Structure and inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease reveal strategy for developing dual inhibitors against Mpro and cathepsin L

  • Sci Adv. 2020 Dec 9;6(50):eabe0751. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe0751.
Michael Dominic Sacco 1,  Chunlong Ma 2,  Panagiotis Lagarias 3,  Ang Gao 2,  Julia Alma Townsend 4,  Xiangzhi Meng 5,  Peter Dube 5,  Xiujun Zhang 1,  Yanmei Hu 2,  Naoya Kitamura 2,  Brett Hurst 6 7,  Bart Tarbet 6 7,  Michael Thomas Marty 4,  Antonios Kolocouris 3,  Yan Xiang 5,  Yu Chen 8,  Jun Wang 9
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Molecular Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA.
  • 2 Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
  • 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 15771, Greece.
  • 4 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
  • 5 Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA.
  • 6 Institute for Antiviral Research, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA.
  • 7 Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA.
  • 8 Department of Molecular Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. [email protected] [email protected].
  • 9 Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. [email protected] [email protected].
PMID: 33158912 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abe0751
Abstract

The main protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2 is a key Antiviral drug target. While most Mpro inhibitors have a γ-lactam glutamine surrogate at the P1 position, we recently found that several Mpro inhibitors have hydrophobic moieties at the P1 site, including calpain inhibitors II and XII, which are also active against human Cathepsin L, a host protease that is important for viral entry. In this study, we solved x-ray crystal structures of Mpro in complex with calpain inhibitors II and XII and three analogs of GC-376 The structure of Mpro with calpain inhibitor II confirmed that the S1 pocket can accommodate a hydrophobic methionine side chain, challenging the idea that a hydrophilic residue is necessary at this position. The structure of calpain inhibitor XII revealed an unexpected, inverted binding pose. Together, the biochemical, computational, structural, and cellular data presented herein provide new directions for the development of dual inhibitors as SARS-CoV-2 antivirals.

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