CoV Main Protease (Mpro) Substrate – COVID-19 Peptides

Substrate for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus main protease (SARS-CoV Mpro). The substrate sequence is derived from residues P4-P5′ of the SARS-CoV Mpro N-terminal autoprocessing site and was identified by a docking study. This substrate binds to and acts as a competitive inhibitor of SARS-CoV Mpro, (3CLpro). Experiments show that the octapeptide AVLQSGFR is bound to SARS-CoV Mpro through six hydrogen bonds. It is an effective inhibitor of SARS coronavirus with an EC50 of 2.7 x 10-2 mg/L and is able to block replication of the virus. The octapeptide also shows no detectable toxicity in the host cells.