Abstract
There is no effective therapeutic or vaccine for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and this study attempts to find therapy using peptide by establishing a basis for the peptide-protein interactions through in silico docking studies for the spike protein of MERS-CoV. The antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) were retrieved from the antimicrobial peptide database (APD3) and shortlisted based on certain important physicochemical properties. The binding mode of the shortlisted peptides was measured based on the number of clusters which forms in a protein-peptide docking using Piper. As a result, we identified a list of putative AMPs which binds to the spike protein of MERS-CoV, which may be crucial in providing the inhibitory action. It is observed that seven putative peptides have good binding score based on cluster size cutoff of 208. We conclude that seven peptides, namely, AP00225, AP00180, AP00549, AP00744, AP00729, AP00764, and AP00223, could possibly have binding with the active site of the MERS-CoV spike protein. These seven AMPs could serve as a therapeutic option for MERS and enhance its treatment outcome.
Highlights
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERSCoV) was identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and it belongs to Coronaviridae family and mostly reported among the Middle Eastern people
It is for these reasons we propose that antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) can be used as an effective therapeutic agents against MERS
As we theorize that the spike protein of MERS-CoV represents the key receptor for our analysis, we focus on developing a theoretical model for the selected AMPs using ITASSER server and its evaluation using Ramachandran plot
Summary
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus (MERSCoV) was identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and it belongs to Coronaviridae family and mostly reported among the Middle Eastern people. Other peptides with positive WWIHS values have been shown to inhibit various viruses such as Rift Valley Fever [5], Dengue, White Nile [6], and SARS [7] and the mechanism of action is by interfering with fusion of host cellular and viral glycoprotein membranes [8]. It is for these reasons we propose that antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) can be used as an effective therapeutic agents against MERS. Several peptides have been extensively studied and identified as anti-MERSCoV peptides [9,10,11,12] and anti-MERS-CoV AMPs in the past few years [13]
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