Vulnerabilities in coronavirus glycan shields despite extensive glycosylation

Yasunori Watanabe; Zachary T. Berndsen; Jayna Raghwani; Gemma E. Seabright; Joel D. Allen; Oliver G. Pybus; Jason S. McLellan; Ian A. Wilson; Thomas A. Bowden; Andrew B. Ward; Max Crispin

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16567-0

Nature Communications (May 2020)

Vulnerabilities in coronavirus glycan shields despite extensive glycosylation

Yasunori Watanabe,
Zachary T. Berndsen,
Jayna Raghwani,
Gemma E. Seabright,
Joel D. Allen,
Oliver G. Pybus,
Jason S. McLellan,
Ian A. Wilson,
Thomas A. Bowden,
Andrew B. Ward,
Max Crispin

Affiliations

Yasunori Watanabe: School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton
Zachary T. Berndsen: Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
Jayna Raghwani: Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford
Gemma E. Seabright: School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton
Joel D. Allen: School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton
Oliver G. Pybus: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford
Jason S. McLellan: Department of Molecular Biosciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Ian A. Wilson: Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
Thomas A. Bowden: Division of Structural Biology, University of Oxford, Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics
Andrew B. Ward: Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
Max Crispin: School of Biological Sciences, University of Southampton

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16567-0
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Glycosylation plays a key role in shielding of immunogenic epitopes on viral spike (S) proteins. Here Watanabe et al. report that glycans of coronavirus SARS and MERS S proteins are heterogeneously distributed and do not form an efficacious high-density global shield which would ensure efficient immune evasion.

Published in Nature Communications

ISSN: 2041-1723 (Online)
Publisher: Nature Portfolio
Country of publisher: United Kingdom
LCC subjects: Science
Website: https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

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