Maloyjo Joyraj Bhattacharjee, Jinn-Jy Lin, Chih-Yao Chang, Yu-Ting Chiou, Tian-Neng Li, Chia-Wei Tai, Tz-Fan Shiu, Chi-An Chen, Chia-Yi Chou, Paromita Chakraborty, Yan Yuan Tseng, Lily Hui-Ching Wang, Wen-Hsiung Li
SARS-CoV-2 infects humans through the binding of viral S-protein (spike protein) to human ACE2 (angiotensin I converting enzyme 2). The structure of the ACE2-S-protein complex has been deciphered and we focused on the 27 ACE2 residues that bind to S-protein. From human sequence databases, we identified 9 ACE2 variants at ACE2-S-protein binding sites. We used both experimental assays and protein structure analysis to evaluate the effect of each variant on the binding affinity of ACE2 to S-protein. We found one variant causing complete binding disruption, two and three variants, respectively, strongly and mildly reducing the binding affinity, and two variants strongly enhancing the binding affinity...
March 1, 2021: Molecular Biology and Evolution