Excerpt from “CSHL’s COVID/SARS CoV2 Rapid Research Meeting Reports V”

Structural biology, molecular biology, and immunology

As with the previous two meetings, this one was broken up into sections by topic and the first up was “Host-virus Interactions/Structure.” There were some great talks looking at which animals are likely susceptible to the virus based on the genetic similarity of their ACE2 receptors to our ACE2 receptor (which we know is the way this coronavirus is able to dock onto our cells). Minks are definitely susceptible to getting and spreading the disease, as we learned from Wim van der Poel of Wageningen University, who told us about his work studying outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 amongst farmed minks in the Netherlands. In his studies, he was able to genetically trace outbreaks amongst people, minks, and even wandering cats!

Those “host-virus interactions” talks were really interesting but, as a student in a structural biology lab, I was particularly excited by the “structure” half of the session. At the second meeting, we heard a lot about the Spike protein and RdRp, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase which the coronavirus uses to copy its genome. At this meeting, more of the coronavirus’ dozen or so Nsps (non-structural proteins) got their time in the spotlight. Yogesh Gupta of the University of Texas and Karla Satchell from Northwestern University each told us about their labs’ work studying the structure and function of the nsp16/nsp10 dimer. These two Nsps work together to help disguise the coronavirus’ RNAs from our immune system by adding a small chemical adornment called a methyl group to the viral RNAs’ cap, making the viral RNAs look more like host RNAs. Both labs had promising early findings on the potential to target these proteins for therapeutics, and Satchell explained how her work was open access so that other groups can use the crystal structures and biochemical data her lab has generated to come up with ideal drugs. You can learn more in their publications here and here.