Scientists have developed a new type of experimental peptide molecule or can effectively target THE effect of SARS-CoV-2 to treat COVID-19 infection!

, June 28, 2020 /
BiovalleyBIOON/ -- Recently, scientists from MIT and other organizations have designed a new type of peptide that binds to coronavirus proteins and breaks them down through cellular pathways, a type that can be used as a potential treatment to inhibit the replication of THE SARS-CoV-2 virus in infected cellsThe researchers' idea is to use a computer technique to engineer peptides to treat COVID-19, which can simply label and degrade viruses once they enter cellsNow that researchers have tested the new peptide in human cells, they are now planning cell and animal studies to assess the potency of the peptide, the researchers reported in a june 1 issue of bioRxiv, a preprinted platformPhoto Source: National Institute of Allergy andOf Essex/NIHPeptide modelingscientists are looking for a number of different strategies to develop new treatments for COVID-19, one area of interest is the development of special antibodies to bind inactivated viral proteins, such as stingproteins, which can be used by coronal proteins to enter human cells; Antibodies; MIT researchers are working to engineer peptides to bind strongly to the stingproteins inside the cell, while also using these peptides to stimulate cell-crushing viral proteins, and the idea is for peptides to recruit a naturally present protein called E3 ubiquitin connecting enzymes that can be labeled and destroyed when cells no longer need themto develop peptides that bind to stingproteins, researchers used a computer model of protein interaction that previously optimized the binding strength between the two proteins, and researcher schatterjee and others recently used similar computer methods to design an improved version of the enzyme used for gene editing, a new CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme that targets more than 70 percent of the DNA sequence, while the most common CRISP R-Cas9 can reach only about 10 percentIn this case, the researchers used the human ACE2 protein as a starting point for research, which is present on the surface of a specific human cell and binds to the coronavirus sting proteinthe researchers used the model developed to break up the ACE2 protein into a variety of small fragments, and then calculated to predict how these fragments can interact with the stingprotein, and they guided the models to optimize the three characteristics, first, to engineer the peptides to have a strong affinity with the stingprotein, and second, These peptides can also be combined with other coronavirus stingproteins, which may be effective against other coronavirus strains in the past or in the future, and third, the researchers say, these peptides do not bind strongly to human protein-union proteins, which normally bind to ACE2 receptors in the bodyThe process produces about 25 candidate peptides, which the researchers were able to fuse with E3 ubiquitin-linked enzymes and test them in human cells that express the stingprotein fragments (receptor binding domain, RBD)the researchers eventually locked in a candidate peptide called 23 amino acid peptides, which crush about 20 percent of the RBD protein in cells, but the peptides did not function as the original ACE2 protein, which breaks down about 30 percent of the RB To improve the performance of this peptide, the researchers used this model to simulate how the combination of RBD would be affected if different amino acids were replaced in 23 locations, and this optimization process could produce a mutant peptide that can increase the degradation rate to more than 50%mark upa key advantage of this peptide is that it has a smaller size, even if it is fused with E3 unoquilate enzymes, the length of the entire chain is only about 200 amino acids, the researchers believe that the RNA or DNA encoded in this peptide can be transported by a virus called adenosis;the current plans of researchers to test the new peptide in human cells infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, if successful, the researchers hope to test the peptide in animal models, and they will continue to study it further to improve it to enable it to better bind to and function with the stinging protein(BioValleyBioon.com) Reference: --A-Peptide targets COVID-19
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