A community effort in SARS-CoV-2 drug discovery.

peer reviewedThe COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a substantial threat to human lives and is likely to do so for years to come. Despite the availability of vaccines, searching for efficient small-molecule drugs that are widely available, including in low- and middle-income countries, is an ongoing challenge. In this work, we report the results of an open science community effort, the "Billion molecules against Covid-19 challenge", to identify small-molecule inhibitors against SARS-CoV-2 or relevant human receptors. Participating teams used a wide variety of computational methods to screen a minimum of 1 billion virtual molecules against 6 protein targets. Overall, 31 teams participated, and they suggested a total of 639,024 molecules, which were subsequently ranked to find 'consensus compounds'. The organizing team coordinated with various contract research organizations (CROs) and collaborating institutions to synthesize and test 878 compounds for biological activity against proteases (Nsp5, Nsp3, TMPRSS2), nucleocapsid N, RdRP (only the Nsp12 domain), and (alpha) spike protein S. Overall, 27 compounds with weak inhibition/binding were experimentally identified by binding-, cleavage-, and/or viral suppression assays and are presented here. Open science approaches such as the one presented here contribute to the knowledge base of future drug discovery efforts in finding better SARS-CoV-2 treatments.R-AGR-3826 - COVID19-14715687-CovScreen (01/06/2020 - 31/01/2021) - GLAAB Enric

Thumbs Down for HIV: Domain Level Rearrangements Do Occur in the NNRTI-Bound HIV‑1 Reverse Transcriptase

One of the principal targets in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) therapy is the reverse transcriptase (RT) enzyme. Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTIs) are a class of highly specific drugs which bind to a pocket approximately 10 Å from the polymerase active site, inhibiting the enzyme allosterically. It is widely believed that NNRTIs function as “molecular wedges”, disrupting the region between thumb and palm subdomains of the p66 subunit and locking the thumb in a wide-open conformation. Crystal structure data suggest that the binding of NNRTIs forces RT into a wide-open conformation in which the separation between the thumb and fingers subdomains is much higher than in the apo structure. Using ensemble molecular dynamics simulations (aggregate sampling ∼600 ns), we have captured RT bound to the NNRTI efavirenz in a closed conformation similar to that of the apo enzyme, suggesting the constraint of thumb motion is not as complete as previously believed. Rather, our investigation confirms that a conformational distribution across open and closed states must exist in the drug-bound enzyme and that allosteric modulation is effected via the alteration of the kinetic landscape of conformational transitions upon drug-binding. A more detailed understanding of the mechanism of NNRTI inhibition and the effect of binding upon domain motion could aid the design of more effective inhibitors and help identify novel allosteric sites

Thumbs Down for HIV: Domain Level Rearrangements Do Occur in the NNRTI-Bound HIV‑1 Reverse Transcriptase

One of the principal targets in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) therapy is the reverse transcriptase (RT) enzyme. Non-nucleoside RT inhibitors (NNRTIs) are a class of highly specific drugs which bind to a pocket approximately 10 Å from the polymerase active site, inhibiting the enzyme allosterically. It is widely believed that NNRTIs function as “molecular wedges”, disrupting the region between thumb and palm subdomains of the p66 subunit and locking the thumb in a wide-open conformation. Crystal structure data suggest that the binding of NNRTIs forces RT into a wide-open conformation in which the separation between the thumb and fingers subdomains is much higher than in the apo structure. Using ensemble molecular dynamics simulations (aggregate sampling ∼600 ns), we have captured RT bound to the NNRTI efavirenz in a closed conformation similar to that of the apo enzyme, suggesting the constraint of thumb motion is not as complete as previously believed. Rather, our investigation confirms that a conformational distribution across open and closed states must exist in the drug-bound enzyme and that allosteric modulation is effected via the alteration of the kinetic landscape of conformational transitions upon drug-binding. A more detailed understanding of the mechanism of NNRTI inhibition and the effect of binding upon domain motion could aid the design of more effective inhibitors and help identify novel allosteric sites

Rapid Conformational Fluctuations of Disordered HIV‑1 Fusion Peptide in Solution

The conformationally flexible fusion peptide (FP) of HIV-1 is indispensible for viral infection of host cells, due to its ability to insert into and tightly couple with phospholipid membranes. There are conflicting reports on the membrane-associated structure of FP, and solution structure information is limited, yet such a structure is the target for a novel class of antiretroviral inhibitors. An ensemble of explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations, initiated from a disordered HIV-1 FP (aggregate time of ∼30 μs), revealed that while the vast majority of conformations predominantly lack secondary structure, both spontaneous formation and rapid interconversion of local secondary structure elements occur, highlighting the structural plasticity of the peptide. Therefore, even at this rapid time scale, FP constitutes a diverse and flexible conformational ensemble in solution. Secondary structure clustering reveals that the most prominent ordered elements are α- and 3–10-helical subsets of membrane-bound conformations, while trace populations within 2 Å RMSD of all complete membrane-bound conformations are found to pre-exist in the solution ensemble. Since inhibitor bound conformations of FP are only rarely found, FP inhibitors could function by modulating the conformational ensemble and binding to nonfusogenic FP structures. A thermodynamic characterization of the most prominent ordered nonfusogenic structures could facilitate the future design of improved FP inhibitors