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Molecular Dynamics Reveals the Effects of Temperature on Critical SARS-CoV-2 Proteins

View ORCID ProfilePaul Morgan, Chih-Wen Shu
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.24.427990
Paul Morgan
1Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Belize, Belmopan City, Belize
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Chih-Wen Shu
2Institute of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
3Institute of Biomedical Sciences, National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
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  • For correspondence: vcwshu@gmail.com cwshu@g-mail.nsysu.edu.tw
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ABSTRACT

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a newly identified RNA virus that causes the serious infection Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The incidence of COVID-19 is still increasing worldwide despite the summer heat and cool winter. However, little is known about seasonal stability of SARS-CoV-2. Herein, we employ Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations to explore the effect of temperature on four critical SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Our work demonstrates that the spike Receptor Binding Domain (RBD), Main protease (Mpro), and nonstructural protein 3 (macro X) possesses extreme thermos-stability when subjected to temperature variations rendering them attractive drug targets. Furthermore, our findings suggest that these four proteins are well adapted to habitable temperatures on earth and are largely insensitive to cold and warm climates. Furthermore, we report that the critical residues in SARS-CoV-2 RBD were less responsive to temperature variations as compared to the critical residues in SARS-CoV. As such, extreme summer and winter climates, and the transition between the two seasons, are expected to have a negligible effect on the stability of SARS-CoV-2 which will marginally suppress transmission rates until effective drugs are available.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 25, 2021.
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Molecular Dynamics Reveals the Effects of Temperature on Critical SARS-CoV-2 Proteins
Paul Morgan, Chih-Wen Shu
bioRxiv 2021.01.24.427990; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.24.427990
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Molecular Dynamics Reveals the Effects of Temperature on Critical SARS-CoV-2 Proteins
Paul Morgan, Chih-Wen Shu
bioRxiv 2021.01.24.427990; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.24.427990

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