Influence of charge configuration on substrate binding to SARS-CoV-2 main protease

Abstract

While the state-of-the-art computational simulations support the neutral state for the catalytic dyad of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, the recently-reported neutron structure exhibits a zwitterionic form. To better compare the structural and dynamical features of the two charge configurations, we perform a Molecular Dynamics study of the dimeric enzyme in complex with a peptide substrate. The simulations show that the enzyme charge configuration from the neutron structure is not compatible with a catalytically-competent binding mode for peptide substrates.