Plasma-activated water: An alternative disinfectant for S protein inactivation to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection

Li Guo; Zhiqian Yao; Lu Yang; Hao Zhang; Yu Qi; Lu Gou; Wang Xi; Dingxin Liu; Lei Zhang; Yilong Cheng; Xiaohua Wang; Mingzhe Rong; Hailan Chen; Michael G Kong

doi:10.1016/j.cej.2020.127742

Plasma-activated water: An alternative disinfectant for S protein inactivation to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection

Chem Eng J. 2021 Oct 1:421:127742. doi: 10.1016/j.cej.2020.127742. Epub 2020 Nov 20.

Authors

Li Guo¹, Zhiqian Yao¹, Lu Yang², Hao Zhang¹, Yu Qi¹, Lu Gou³, Wang Xi¹, Dingxin Liu¹, Lei Zhang³, Yilong Cheng⁴, Xiaohua Wang¹, Mingzhe Rong¹, Hailan Chen⁵, Michael G Kong^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, Center for Plasma Biomedicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China.
² School of Life Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China.
³ School of Physics, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, China.
⁴ School of Chemistry, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, PR China.
⁵ Frank Reidy Center for Bioelectrics, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23508, USA.
⁶ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 is a highly contagious virus and is causing a global pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 infection depends on the recognition of and binding to the cellular receptor human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) through the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein, and disruption of this process can effectively inhibit SARS-CoV-2 invasion. Plasma-activated water efficiently inactivates bacteria and bacteriophages by causing damage to biological macromolecules, but its effect on coronavirus has not been reported. In this study, pseudoviruses with the SARS-CoV-2 S protein were used as a model, and plasma-activated water (PAW) effectively inhibited pseudovirus infection through S protein inactivation. The RBD was used to study the molecular details, and the RBD binding activity was inactivated by plasma-activated water through the RBD modification. The short-lived reactive species in the PAW, such as ONOO^-, played crucial roles in this inactivation. Plasma-activated water after room-temperature storage of 30 days remained capable of significantly reducing the RBD binding with hACE2. Together, our findings provide evidence of a potent disinfection strategy to combat the epidemic caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: Plasma-activated water; Pseudoviruses; Reactive species; Receptor-binding domain (RBD); SARS-CoV-2.