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Yao W, Li Y, Ma D, Hou X, Wang H, Tang X, Cheng D, Zhang H, Du C, Pan H, Li C, Lin H, Sun M, Ding Q, Wang Y, Gao J, Zhong G. Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Spikes shapes their binding affinities to animal ACE2 orthologs. Microbiol Spectr 2023; 11:e0267623. [PMID: 37943512 PMCID: PMC10715038 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.02676-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/10/2023] [Accepted: 10/08/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023] Open
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Spike-receptor interaction is a critical determinant for the host range of coronaviruses. In this study, we investigated the SARS-CoV-2 WHU01 strain and five WHO-designated SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs), including Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and the early Omicron variant, for their Spike interactions with ACE2 proteins of 18 animal species. First, the receptor-binding domains (RBDs) of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Omicron were found to display progressive gain of affinity to mouse ACE2. More interestingly, these RBDs were also found with progressive loss of affinities to multiple ACE2 orthologs. The Omicron RBD showed decreased or complete loss of affinity to eight tested animal ACE2 orthologs, including that of some livestock animals (horse, donkey, and pig), pet animals (dog and cat), and wild animals (pangolin, American pika, and Rhinolophus sinicus bat). These findings shed light on potential host range shift of SARS-CoV-2 VOCs, especially that of the Omicron variant.
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Affiliation(s)
- Weitong Yao
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
- Hubei JiangXia Laboratory, Wuhan, Hubei, China
| | - Yujun Li
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Danting Ma
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
- NHC Key Laboratory of Hormones and Development, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Metabolic Diseases, Chu Hsien-I Memorial Hospital & Tianjin Institute of Endocrinology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China
| | - Xudong Hou
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Haimin Wang
- Horae Gene Therapy Center, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
| | - Xiaojuan Tang
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Dechun Cheng
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
- Heilongjiang Academy of Medical Sciences, Harbin, China
| | - He Zhang
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Chengzhi Du
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Hong Pan
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Chao Li
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Hua Lin
- Biomedical Research Center of South China, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China
| | - Mengsi Sun
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
| | - Qiang Ding
- Center for Infectious Disease Research, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
| | | | - Jiali Gao
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
- Department of Chemistry and Supercomputing Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
| | - Guocai Zhong
- School of Chemical Biology and Biotechnology, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, China
- Horae Gene Therapy Center, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
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Lu M, Yao W, Li Y, Ma D, Zhang Z, Wang H, Tang X, Wang Y, Li C, Cheng D, Lin H, Yin Y, Zhao J, Zhong G. Broadly Effective ACE2 Decoy Proteins Protect Mice from Lethal SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Microbiol Spectr 2023; 11:e0110023. [PMID: 37395664 PMCID: PMC10434153 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.01100-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2023] [Accepted: 06/06/2023] [Indexed: 07/04/2023] Open
Abstract
As severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants have been causing increasingly serious drug resistance problem, development of broadly effective and hard-to-escape anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents is an urgent need. Here, we describe further development and characterization of two SARS-CoV-2 receptor decoy proteins, ACE2-Ig-95 and ACE2-Ig-105/106. We found that both proteins had potent and robust in vitro neutralization activities against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants, including BQ.1 and XBB.1, that are resistant to most clinically used monoclonal antibodies. In a stringent lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection mouse model, both proteins lowered the lung viral load by up to ~1,000-fold, prevented the emergence of clinical signs in >75% animals, and increased the animal survival rate from 0% (untreated) to >87.5% (treated). These results demonstrate that both proteins are good drug candidates for protecting animals from severe COVID-19. In a head-to-head comparison of these two proteins with five previously described ACE2-Ig constructs, we found that two constructs, each carrying five surface mutations in the ACE2 region, had partial loss of neutralization potency against three SARS-CoV-2 variants. These data suggest that extensively mutating ACE2 residues near the receptor binding domain (RBD)-binding interface should be avoided or performed with extra caution. Furthermore, we found that both ACE2-Ig-95 and ACE2-Ig-105/106 could be produced to the level of grams per liter, demonstrating the developability of them as biologic drug candidates. Stress condition stability testing of them further suggests that more studies are required in the future to improve the stability of these proteins. These studies provide useful insight into critical factors for engineering and preclinical development of ACE2 decoys as broadly effective therapeutics against diverse ACE2-utilizing coronaviruses. IMPORTANCE Engineering soluble ACE2 proteins that function as a receptor decoy to block SARS-CoV-2 infection is a very attractive approach to creating broadly effective and hard-to-escape anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents. This article describes development of two antibody-like soluble ACE2 proteins that broadly block diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron. In a stringent COVID-19 mouse model, both proteins successfully protected >87.5% animals from lethal SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, a head-to-head comparison of the two constructs developed in this study with five previously described ACE2 decoy constructs was performed here. Two previously described constructs with relatively more ACE2 surface mutations were found with less robust neutralization activities against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants. Furthermore, the developability of the two proteins as biologic drug candidates was also assessed here. This study provides two broad anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug candidates and useful insight into critical factors for engineering and preclinical development of ACE2 decoys as broadly effective therapeutics against diverse ACE2-utilizing coronaviruses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mengjia Lu
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Genomics, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Weitong Yao
- Hubei JiangXia Laboratory, Wuhan, Hubei, China
| | - Yujun Li
- Shenzhen University School of Medicine, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Danting Ma
- Tianjin Medical University Chu Hsien-I Memorial Hospital, Tianjin, China
| | - Zhaoyong Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Haimin Wang
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Xiaojuan Tang
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Genomics, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Yanqun Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Chao Li
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Dechun Cheng
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Hua Lin
- Biomedical Research Center of South China, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, Fujian, China
| | - Yandong Yin
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Genomics, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Jincun Zhao
- State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Guocai Zhong
- State Key Laboratory of Chemical Oncogenomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Chemical Genomics, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
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Wu F, Chen X, Ma Y, Wu Y, Li R, Huang Y, Zhang R, Zhou Y, Zhan J, Liu S, Xu W. Glycosylated, Lipid-Binding, CDR-Like Domains of SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 Indicate Unique Sites of Immune Regulation. Microbiol Spectr 2023; 11:e0123423. [PMID: 37318366 PMCID: PMC10434001 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.01234-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/23/2023] [Accepted: 05/23/2023] [Indexed: 06/16/2023] Open
Abstract
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has posed a significant threat to human health and the global economy since the end of 2019. Unfortunately, due to the virus's rapid evolution, preventingand controlling the epidemic remains challenging. The ORF8 protein is a unique accessory protein in SARS-CoV-2 that plays a crucial role in immune regulation, but its molecular details are still largely unknown. In this study, we successfully expressed SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 in mammalian cells and determined its structure using X-ray crystallography at a resolution of 2.3 Å. Our findings reveal several novel features of ORF8. We found that four pairs of disulfide bonds and glycosylation at residue N78 are essential for stabilizing ORF8's protein structure. Additionally, we identified a lipid-binding pocket and three functional loops that tend to form CDR-like domains that may interact with immune-related proteins to regulate the host immune system. On cellular experiments also demonstrated that glycosylation at N78 regulats of ORF8's ability to bind to monocytes cells. These novel features of ORF8 provide structural insights to into its immune-related function and may serve as new targets for developing ORF8-mediated immune regulation inhibitors. IMPORTANCE COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 virus, has triggered a global outbreak. The virus's continuous mutation increases its infectivity and may be directly related to the immune escape response of viral proteins. In this study, we used X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 protein, a unique accessory protein expressed in mammalian cells, at a resolution of 2.3 Å. Our novel structure reveals important structure details that shed light on ORF8's involvement in immune regulation, including conservation disulfide bonds, a glycosylation site at N78, a lipid-binding pocket, and three functional loops that tend to form CDR-like domains that may interact with immune-related proteins to modulate the host immune system. We also conducted preliminary validation experiments on immune cells. These new insights into ORF8's structure and function provide potential targets for developing inhibitors to block the ORF8-mediated immune regulation between viral protein and host, ultimately contributing to the development of novel therapeutics for COVID-19.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fang Wu
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Xin Chen
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yanhong Ma
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yuzhe Wu
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Rui Li
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Yuanwei Huang
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Rong Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Virology (MOE/NHC/CAMS), School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shanghai Medical College, Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Yaoqi Zhou
- Institute for Systems and Physical Biology, Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Jian Zhan
- Institute for Systems and Physical Biology, Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Shuwen Liu
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
| | - Wei Xu
- Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China
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Cai M, Kandalai S, Tang X, Zheng Q. Contributions of Human-Associated Archaeal Metabolites to Tumor Microenvironment and Carcinogenesis. Microbiol Spectr 2022; 10:e0236721. [PMID: 35225671 PMCID: PMC9045267 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.02367-21] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2021] [Accepted: 01/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
There is increasing awareness that archaea are interrelated with human diseases (including cancer). Archaea utilize unique metabolic pathways to produce a variety of metabolites that serve as a direct link to host-microbe interactions. However, knowledge on the diversity of human-associated archaea is still extremely limited, and less is known about the pathological effects of their metabolites to the tumor microenvironment and carcinogenesis. In the present study, we performed a large-scale analysis of archaea and their cancer-related metabolites across different body sites using >44,000 contigs with length >1,000 bp. Taxonomy annotation revealed that the occurrence and diversity of archaea are higher in two body sites, the gut and the oral cavity. Unlike other human-associated microbes, the nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) analyses have shown no difference of archaeal compositions between Easterners and Westerners. Likewise, protein annotation suggests that genes encoding cancer-related metabolites (e.g., short-chain fatty acids and polyamines) are more prevalent and diverse in gut and oral samples. Archaea carrying these metabolites are restricted to Euryarchaeota and the TACK superphylum (Thaumarchaeota, Aigarchaeota, Crenarchaeota, and Korarchaeota), especially methanogenic archaea, such as Methanobacteria. IMPORTANCE More evidence suggests that archaea are associated with human disease, including cancer. Here, we present the first framework of the diversity and distribution of human-associated archaea across human body sites, such as gut and oral cavity, using long contigs. Furthermore, we unveiled the potential archaeal metabolites linking to different lineages that might influence the tumor microenvironment and carcinogenesis. These results could open a new door to the guidance of diagnosing cancer and developing new treatment strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingwei Cai
- Institute of Chemical Biology, Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
| | - Shruthi Kandalai
- Department of Radiation Oncology, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
- Center for Cancer Metabolism, James Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
| | - Xiaoyu Tang
- Institute of Chemical Biology, Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
- School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China
| | - Qingfei Zheng
- Department of Radiation Oncology, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
- Center for Cancer Metabolism, James Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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