Quantum tunnelling in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Betony Adams*, Ilya Sinayskiy, Rienk van Grondelle, Francesco Petruccione

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has added new urgency to the study of viral mechanisms of infection. But while vaccines offer a measure of protection against this specific outbreak, a new era of pandemics has been predicted. In addition to this, COVID-19 has drawn attention to post-viral syndromes and the healthcare burden they entail. It seems integral that knowledge of viral mechanisms is increased through as wide a research field as possible. To this end we propose that quantum biology might offer essential new insights into the problem, especially with regards to the important first step of virus-host invasion. Research in quantum biology often centres around energy or charge transfer. While this is predominantly in the context of photosynthesis there has also been some suggestion that cellular receptors such as olfactory or neural receptors might employ vibration assisted electron tunnelling to augment the lock-and-key mechanism. Quantum tunnelling has also been observed in enzyme function. Enzymes are implicated in the invasion of host cells by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Receptors such as olfactory receptors also appear to be disrupted by COVID-19. Building on these observations we investigate the evidence that quantum tunnelling might be important in the context of infection with SARS-CoV-2. We illustrate this with a simple model relating the vibronic mode of, for example, a viral spike protein to the likelihood of charge transfer in an idealised receptor. Our results show a distinct parameter regime in which the vibronic mode of the spike protein enhances electron transfer. With this in mind, novel therapeutics to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission could potentially be identified by their vibrational spectra.

Original languageEnglish
Article number16929
Pages (from-to)1-14
Number of pages14
JournalScientific Reports
Volume12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Oct 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
B.A, I.S. and F.P. were supported by the South African Research Chair Initiative of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation. Thank you to Angela Illing for the diagrams.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

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