J Am Chem Soc . Spherical Neutralizing Aptamer Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Suppresses Mutational Escape

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J Am Chem Soc


. 2021 Dec 2.
doi: 10.1021/jacs.1c08226. Online ahead of print.
Spherical Neutralizing Aptamer Inhibits SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Suppresses Mutational Escape


Miao Sun ¹ , Siwen Liu ² , Ting Song ¹ , Fude Chen ¹ , Jialu Zhang ^{1 3} , Jia-Ao Huang ¹ , Shuang Wan ¹ , Yao Lu ¹ , Honglin Chen ² , Weihong Tan ³ , Yanling Song ¹ , Chaoyong Yang ^{1 3}



Affiliations

• PMID: 34855379
• DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c08226

Abstract

New neutralizing agents against SARS-CoV-2 and associated mutant strains are urgently needed for the treatment and prophylaxis of COVID-19. Herein, we develop a spherical cocktail neutralizing aptamer-gold nanoparticle (SNAP) to block the interaction between the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 and host ACE2. With the multivalent aptamer assembly as well as the steric hindrance effect of the gold scaffold, SNAP exhibits exceptional binding affinity against the RBD with a dissociation constant of 3.90 pM and potent neutralization against authentic SARS-CoV-2 with a half-maximal inhibitory concentration of 142.80 fM, about 2 or 3 orders of magnitude lower than that of the reported neutralizing aptamers and antibodies. More importantly, the synergetic blocking strategy of multivalent multisite binding and steric hindrance ensures broad neutralizing activity of SNAP, almost completely blocking the infection of three mutant pseudoviruses. Overall, the SNAP strategy provides a new direction for the development of antivirus agents against SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging coronaviruses.