Problems associated with antiviral drugs and vaccines development for COVID-19: approach to intervention using expression vectors via GPI anchor

Abstract

The outbreak of a novel coronavirus responsible for the severe acquired respiratory syndrome: SARS-CoV-2, also known as coronavirus disease 2019: COVID-19, represents a pandemic threat that has been declared a public health emergency of international concern. The CoV spike (S) glycoprotein is a key target for diagnostic, development of antibodies, entry inhibitors, and vaccines. COVID-19 also recognizes angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as its host receptor binding to viral S protein. Several antiviral drugs and vaccines have been evaluated for the treatment and prevention of the infection by the virus. To facilitate medical countermeasure development, the problems associated with antiviral drugs and vaccines development for containing the spread of COVID-19 are discussed. There is an urgent need to study deeply on the structure, mutations, and function of COVID-19 as well as its pathophysiology from a large population. Construction of expression vectors for any protein targeting to the cell plasma membrane via the glycosyl-phosphatidylinositol, GPI, anchor for studying intermolecular interactions, as described in Ref. # 62 (Nguyen, K. V., Naviaux, R. K., Nyhan, W. L. Lesch-Nyhan disease: I. Construction of expression vectors for hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (HGprt) enzyme and amyloid precursor protein (APP). Nucleosides Nucleotides Nucleic Acids 2020, 39, 905-922), between the S protein of COVID-19 as well as its variants and ACE2 could be useful in antiviral drugs and vaccines development.

Keywords: Severe acquired respiratory syndrome (SARS); angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2); coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); expression vectors via GPI anchor; intermolecular interactions; mutations; spike (S) protein.