Dr. Xufang Deng and colleagues publish a high-impact paper on SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors
5/2/2024
A paper by Dr. Xufang Deng (OCRID Pilot Project leader) and collaborators was recently published in the journal Science. The paper entitled “Design of a SARS-CoV-2 papain-like protease inhibitor with antiviral efficacy in a mouse model” describes the design and testing of a small-molecule drug against one the two main viral proteases, papain-like protease PLpro. Based on previous leads, the authors used a structure-guided approach to design and screen a series of non-covalent inhibitors aimed to bind a recently discovered ubiquitin binding site in PLpro. The outcome of the work is a lead compound that improved survival and reduced viral load and virus-induced lesions in SARS-CoV-2 infected mice, and show that PLpro inhibitors are promising candidates in the battle against COVID-19.