Structural biology of SARS-CoV-1/SARS-CoV-2 main protease

Yunyun Gao, Johannes Kaub, Gianluca Santoni, Nicholas Pearce, Andrea Thorn*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalReview articleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-1/SARS-CoV-2 main protease cleaves the nascent viral polyproteins into biologically functional molecules, which are essential for viral reproduction inside the host cell. With more than 500 crystal structures available, it is one of the most heavily researched coronavirus proteins and a popular drug target. This review focuses on putting the function and structure of the main protease into a historical perspective, highlighting the structure-based design of inhibitors of the main protease and discussing potential future research directions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)76-101
Number of pages26
JournalCrystallography Reviews
Volume29
Issue number2
Early online date23 Jun 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [grant number 05K19WWA], [grant number 05K22GU5] and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [project TH2135/2-1]. N.M.P recognizes funding from a Veni Fellowship [no. VI.Veni.192.143] from the. We thank Rosemary Wilson for proofreading. All figures are courtesy of the Coronavirus Structural Task Force (insidecorona.net) which retains copyright for both the text and the figures.

FundersFunder number
Coronavirus Structural Task Force
Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftTH2135/2-1, VI.Veni.192.143
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung05K22GU5, 05K19WWA

    Keywords

    • COVID-19
    • inhibitors
    • ligand screening
    • main protease
    • SARS-CoV-2

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