Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Poggio, Elena
• Vallese, Francesca
• Hartel, Andreas J. W.
• Morgenstern, Travis J.
• Kanner, Scott A.
• Rauh, Oliver
• Giamogante, Flavia
• Barazzuol, Lucia
• Shepard, Kenneth L.
• Colecraft, Henry M.
• Clarke, Oliver Biggs
• Brini, Marisa
• Calì, Tito

Titel

Perturbation of the host cell Ca2+ homeostasis and ER-mitochondria contact sites by the SARS-CoV-2 structural proteins E and M

Ist Teil von

• Cell death & disease, 2023-04, Vol.14 (4), p.297-297, Article 297

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group UK

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a contagious respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The clinical phenotypes are variable, ranging from spontaneous recovery to serious illness and death. On March 2020, a global COVID-19 pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO). As of February 2023, almost 670 million cases and 6,8 million deaths have been confirmed worldwide. Coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, contain a single-stranded RNA genome enclosed in a viral capsid consisting of four structural proteins: the nucleocapsid (N) protein, in the ribonucleoprotein core, the spike (S) protein, the envelope (E) protein, and the membrane (M) protein, embedded in the surface envelope. In particular, the E protein is a poorly characterized viroporin with high identity amongst all the β-coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, HCoV-OC43) and a low mutation rate. Here, we focused our attention on the study of SARS-CoV-2 E and M proteins, and we found a general perturbation of the host cell calcium (Ca 2+ ) homeostasis and a selective rearrangement of the interorganelle contact sites. In vitro and in vivo biochemical analyses revealed that the binding of specific nanobodies to soluble regions of SARS-CoV-2 E protein reversed the observed phenotypes, suggesting that the E protein might be an important therapeutic candidate not only for vaccine development, but also for the clinical management of COVID designing drug regimens that, so far, are very limited.