Synthetic carbohydrate-binding agents neutralize SARS-CoV-2 by inhibiting binding of the spike protein to ACE2

Oscar Francesconi; Lorena Donnici; Marco Fragai; Elisa Pesce; Mauro Bombaci; Alessandra Fasciani; Lara Manganaro; Matteo Conti; Renata Grifantini; Raffaele De Francesco; Cristina Nativi; Stefano Roelens

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104239

Synthetic carbohydrate-binding agents neutralize SARS-CoV-2 by inhibiting binding of the spike protein to ACE2

iScience. 2022 May 20;25(5):104239. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104239. Epub 2022 Apr 11.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Dipartimento di Chimica, DICUS, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
² Fondazione INGM - Istituto Nazionale Genetica Molecolare "Romeo ed Enrica Invernizzi", Milan, Italy.
³ CERM, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.
⁴ Dipartimento di Scienze Farmacologiche e Biomolecolari, University of Milan, Milan, Italy.
⁵ INSTM, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.

Abstract

Developing strategies against the SARS-CoV-2 is currently a main research subject. SARS-CoV-2 infects host cells by binding to human ACE2 receptors. Both, virus and ACE2, are highly glycosylated, and exploiting glycans of the SARS-CoV-2 envelope as binding sites for ACE2 represents a virus strategy for attacking the human host. We report here that a family of mannose-binding synthetic carbohydrate-binding agents (CBAs) inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection, showing broad neutralizing activity vs. several variants of the spike protein. Preliminary tests indicated that the investigated CBAs interact with the spike protein rather than with ACE2. For a lead compound (IDS060), which has been selected among others for its lack of cytotoxicity, evidence of binding to the RBD of the spike protein has been found by NMR experiments, while competitive binding assays in the presence of IDS060 showed inhibition of binding of RBD to hACE2, although neutralizing activity was also observed with variants showing reduced or depleted binding.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Carbohydrate; Microbiology.