The Spike Mutants Website: A Worldwide Used Resource against SARS-CoV-2.
Isabella RomeoIngrid Guarnetti PrandiEmanuela GiombiniCesare Ernesto Maria GruberDaniele PietrucciStefano BorocciNabil AbidAnna FavaAndrea Rosario BeccariGiovanni ChillemiCarmine TalaricoPublished in: International journal of molecular sciences (2022)
A large number of SARS-CoV-2 mutations in a short period of time has driven scientific research related to vaccines, new drugs, and antibodies to combat the new variants of the virus. Herein, we present a web portal containing the structural information, the tridimensional coordinates, and the molecular dynamics trajectories of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and its main variants. The Spike Mutants website can serve as a rapid online tool for investigating the impact of novel mutations on virus fitness. Taking into account the high variability of SARS-CoV-2, this application can help the scientific community when prioritizing molecules for experimental assays, thus, accelerating the identification of promising drug candidates for COVID-19 treatment. Below we describe the main features of the platform and illustrate the possible applications for speeding up the drug discovery process and hypothesize new effective strategies to overcome the recurrent mutations in SARS-CoV-2 genome.
Keyphrases
- sars cov
- molecular dynamics
- respiratory syndrome coronavirus
- drug discovery
- healthcare
- copy number
- high throughput
- mental health
- emergency department
- density functional theory
- physical activity
- depressive symptoms
- health information
- coronavirus disease
- gene expression
- small molecule
- combination therapy
- smoking cessation