Robetta model of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein with conserved epitopes highlighed in green; superimposed glycans from the SARS CryoEM structure (Veesler Lab) in blue.
The World Health Organization has declared the recent outbreak of COVID-19, a novel coronavirus disease first reported in Wuhan, China, a public health emergency of international concern. In response, scientists around the world are expediting research on the virus, now known as SARS-CoV-2.
Together with the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Disease (SSGCID), we have prioritized structural genomic efforts to focus on the elucidation of important protein structures of SARS-CoV-2.
The Robetta protein prediction server has been used to produce models of SARS-CoV-2 proteins. In particular, models of the Spike protein, which in betacoronaviruses is involved in virus entry into host cells, was requested by Richard Scheuerman from the Virus Pathogen Database (ViPR) to map human betacoronaviruses B cell/antibody epitopes that are conserved in the Wuhan-Hu-1 isolate; details will be posted on the ViPR 2019-nCov newspage.
Note: A manuscript describing a 3.5 Å-resolution cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV S trimer in the prefusion conformation was recently published.