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Non-Toxic Dimeric Peptides Derived from the Bothropstoxin-I Are Potent SARS-CoV-2 and Papain-like Protease Inhibitors

2021; Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute; Volume: 26; Issue: 16 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3390/molecules26164896

1433-1373

Marjorie Caroline Liberato Cavalcanti Freire, G.D. Noske, Natália Vitória Bitencourt, Paulo R. S. Sanches, Norival A. Santos‐Filho, Victor O. Gawriljuk, Eduardo Pereira de Souza, Victor H. R. Nogueira, Mariana Ortiz de Godoy, A.M. Nakamura, R.S. Fernandes, André S. Godoy, María A. Juliano, Bianca de Miranda Peres, Cecília Gomes Barbosa, Carolina Borsoi Moraes, Lúcio H. Freitas-Júnior, Eduardo Maffud Cilli, Rafael V. C. Guido, Glaucius Oliva,

vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches

The COVID-19 outbreak has rapidly spread on a global scale, affecting the economy and public health systems throughout the world. In recent years, peptide-based therapeutics have been widely studied and developed to treat infectious diseases, including viral infections. Herein, the antiviral effects of the lysine linked dimer des-Cys11, Lys12,Lys13-(pBthTX-I)2K ((pBthTX-I)2K)) and derivatives against SARS-CoV-2 are reported. The lead peptide (pBthTX-I)2K and derivatives showed attractive inhibitory activities against SARS-CoV-2 (EC50 = 28–65 µM) and mostly low cytotoxic effect (CC50 > 100 µM). To shed light on the mechanism of action underlying the peptides’ antiviral activity, the Main Protease (Mpro) and Papain-Like protease (PLpro) inhibitory activities of the peptides were assessed. The synthetic peptides showed PLpro inhibition potencies (IC50s = 1.0–3.5 µM) and binding affinities (Kd = 0.9–7 µM) at the low micromolar range but poor inhibitory activity against Mpro (IC50 > 10 µM). The modeled binding mode of a representative peptide of the series indicated that the compound blocked the entry of the PLpro substrate toward the protease catalytic cleft. Our findings indicated that non-toxic dimeric peptides derived from the Bothropstoxin-I have attractive cellular and enzymatic inhibitory activities, thereby suggesting that they are promising prototypes for the discovery and development of new drugs against SARS-CoV-2 infection.