PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jiahao Huang
AU  - Jing Wang
AU  - Ziyuan Wang
AU  - Ming Chu
AU  - Yuedan Wang
TI  - Tuftsin: a natural molecule against SARS-CoV-2 infection
AID  - 10.1101/2022.01.10.475746
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.01.10.475746
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/17/2022.01.10.475746.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/17/2022.01.10.475746.full
AB  - Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continuously proceeds despite the application of a variety of vaccines. It is still urgent to find effective ways to treat COVID-19. Recent studies indicate that NRP1, an important receptor of the natural peptide tuftsin, facilitates SARS-CoV-2 infection. Importantly, tuftsin is a natural human molecule released from IgG. Here, we found 91 overlapping genes between tuftsin targets and COVID-19-associated genes. Bioinformatics analyses indicated that tuftsin could also target ACE2 and exert some immune-related functions to treat COVID-19. Using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysis, we confirmed that tuftsin can bind ACE2 and NRP1 directly. Moreover, tuftsin effectively impairs the binding of SARS-CoV-2 S1 to ACE2. Thus, tuftsin is an attractive drug against COVID-19. And tuftsin as natural immunostimulating peptide in human, we speculate that tuftsin may has crucial roles in asymptomatic carriers or mild cases of COVID-19.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.