IN SEARCH OF SARS THERAPEUTICS

Abstract

USING CRYSTAL STRUCTURES of a crucial enzyme from two related coronaviruses as a guide, German scientists claim to have identified a promising starting point for the design of a drug to combat severe acute respiratory syndrome. Many viruses, including the coronavirus that causes SARS, rely on a protein-cleaving enzyme called main proteinase to activate replication. Such viruses must replicate themselves in order to cause infection, making this enzyme a prime target for drug development. Rolf Hilgenfeld, director of the Institute for Biochemistry at the University of Lubeck, in Germany, and his coworkers determined X-ray crystal structures of the main proteinases produced by a human coronavirus and a pig coronavirus. Hilgenfeld's team used their structures to create a structural model of the SARS coronavirus main proteinase [Science, published online May 13, http://wwwsciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1085658vl]. Eidogen, based in Pasadena, Calif., made public its own model of the same enzyme on May 14. On the ...