Missense Variants in Human ACE2 May Influence its Binding Interaction with SARS-CoV-2 and Infectivity of COVID-19

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The recent pandemic of COVID-19 is reported as a pandemic and spreads globally. As known, COVID-19 is caused by SARS-CoV-2 and human ACE2 has been reported as the receptor of SARS-CoV-2. Nowadays, as reported, variants in the coronavirus can lead to the transmission across species, in turn, variants of ACE2 may affect the susceptibility of SARS-CoV-2. In this work, we collected and selected critical missense variants in ACE2. Thereafter, we predicted the changes of protein-protein binding affinity, corresponding to each missense variant. According to the results, thirteen variants in human ACE2 exhibit obvious differences. More specifically, six variants (D38E, M82I, Y83F, K353H, R357A, and R357S) in ACE2 are predicted to enhance its interaction with the coronavirus spike protein. In comparison, seven variants (S19P, K31D, Y41A, M82N, M82T, D355A, and D355N) are predicted to inhibit such kind interaction. Accordingly, the final findings of our work may provide evidence that the potential relationship between COVID-19 susceptibility and human ACE2 genetic variants.