Structural and Functional Study of Viral Membrane Proteins in Solution State NMR

The recent occurrence of the SARS-CoV2 virus, causing COVID-19, has shown that we still do not have sufficient knowledge of the infection mechanism of such human infecting viruses to produce effective treatments. One of the reasons for ineffective treatments is the scarce data on the structural and functional roles of some of the most crucial regions in the viral and host membrane fusion mechanism. Two regions that all viruses possess are the fusion peptide and the transmembrane domain, which are sequence conserved throughout the specific family of the virus, extremely sensitive to mutations, and any dysfunction in these regions can halt the virus infection completely. In this seminar, the fusion peptide structural analysis of the 2019 severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 and the 2012 middle eastern respiratory syndrome coronaviruses with solution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in micelles will be discussed. The transmembrane domain (TMD) structural analysis of the Influenza hemagglutinin in a variety of membrane environments will also be reviewed. These discoveries will help in the determination of more effective target regions for the development of pan-coronavirus therapeutic treatments.