COVID-19: selection of specific inhibitors for main protease Mpro of SARS-CoV-2 by phage display

Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is an emerging and highly contagious disease, with which the world is experiencing a pandemic from the end of 2019 to the present day, which has led several countries to bankruptcy public health service, and soon Brazil will reach this situation. Today (13/04/2020) there are already at least 22300 people infected and 1230 deaths in the country. Worldwide, the number of deaths exceeds 116,000. The virus is advancing rapidly around the world, and everyone who can is looking for alternatives to contain it, so far, we have no medicine, vaccine or other method of control other than social detachment. In order to contribute to this search for scientific knowledge in developing of specific anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapies, the molecular mechanisms that promote and sustain viral infection must be defined. An important therapeutic target among coronaviruses is the main protease Mpro (or 3CLpro), due to its essential role in processing the polyproteins that are translated from viral RNA and enabling the formation of the viral particle. Thus, the purpose of this work is to identify specific inhibitors for the main Mpro protease of SARS-CoV-2 through the phage display technique using peptide libraries and protein inhibitors. (AU)