Homology Models of the Papain-Like Protease PLpro from Coronavirus 2019-nCoV

The December 2019 outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China was rapidly linked to a novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV. The rapid spread and severity of the virus has led the World Health Organization to declare it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. We recently described the first homology models of the main 3CL protease from 2019-nCoV, and now present models of the other viral protease, the papain-like protease or PLpro. Whilst the overall viral genome is most closely associated with bat coronaviruses, no bat PLpro crystal structures are known. Wuhan 2019-nCoV PLpro is most closely related to a bat coronavirus PLpro (97% identity), then SARS (80 %) and MERS (29%) and the most promising models presented here are prepared from SARS crystal structure templates

Homology Models of Coronavirus 2019-nCoV 3CLpro Protease

A regional outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in late 2019 was associated with a novel coronavirus. Rapid release of genomic data for the isolated virus enabled the construction of first-generation homology models of the new CoV 3CLpro cysteine protease. Whilst the overall viral genome was most closely associated with bat coronaviruses, the main protease is most closely related (96% identity) to SARS CoV protease