Cited by 4,405SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 ResearchComputational Drug Discovery MethodsSARS-CoV-2 detection and testing

A SARS-CoV-2 protein interaction map reveals targets for drug repurposing

Open access
Gordon, David E., Jang, Gwendolyn M., Bouhaddou, Mehdi, Xu, Jiewei, Obernier, Kirsten, White, Kris M., O’Meara, Matthew J., Rezelj, Veronica V. +117 more·2020·Nature

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

A newly described coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has infected over 2.3 million people, led to the death of more than 160,000 individuals and caused worldwide social and economic disruption 1,2. There are no antiviral drugs with proven clinical efficacy for the treatment of COVID-19, nor are there any vaccines that prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2, and efforts to develop drugs and vaccines are hampered by the limited knowledge of the molecular details of how SARS-CoV-2 infects cells. Here we cloned, tagged and expressed 26 of the 29 SARS-CoV-2 proteins in human cells and identified the human proteins that physically associated with each of the SARS-CoV-2 proteins using affinity-purification mass spectrometry, identifying 332 high-confidence protein-protein interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and human proteins. Among these, we identify 66 druggable human proteins or host factors targeted by 69 compounds (of which, 29 drugs are approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, 12 are in clinical trials and 28 are preclinical compounds). We screened a subset of these in multiple viral assays and found two sets of pharmacological agents that displayed antiviral activity: inhibitors of mRNA translation and predicted regulators of the sigma-1 and sigma-2 receptors. Further studies of these host-factor-targeting agents, including their combination with drugs that directly target viral enzymes, could lead to a therapeutic regimen to treat COVID-19.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41586-020-2286-9

Cites

84 of 84 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Recent proteomics studies have focused on SARS-CoV-2, uncovering additional potential therapeutic targets.

    “Building on this knowledge of coronavirus infection, recent proteomics studies have focused on SARS-CoV-2, uncovering additional potential therapeutic targets154,155.”

    From A high-stringency blueprint of the human proteome (2020) · cites this paper as [155]

  • Affinity-MS interactome studies examined 26 of 29 total SARS-CoV-2 proteins expressed within HEK293T human cells, suggesting 69 existing drugs merit further investigation.

    “Additionally, affinity-MS interactome studies examined 26 of 29 total SARS-CoV-2 proteins expressed within HEK293T human cells155, suggesting 69 existing drugs merit further investigation.”

    From A high-stringency blueprint of the human proteome (2020) · cites this paper as [155]

  • A main evasion strategy seems to be blocking type I interferon responses at several steps, such as viral RNA recognition, nuclear translocation of inflammatory transcription factors, and STAT1/STAT2 phosphorylation.

    “A predominant strategy appears to be the inhibition of the type I interferon response58–60 at multiple points, including impaired recognition of viral RNA61,62, decreased nuclear translocation of pro-inflammatory transcription factors (such as IRF3, IRF7 and STAT1)61,63 and suppression of STAT1 and STAT2 phosphorylation64,65.”
  • Interaction mapping suggested that NSP13 interacts with TBK1, NSP15 with NRDP1, ORF9b with TOMM70, and ORF6 with KPNA2 or the IFN-induced NUP98-RAE1 nuclear export complex, all antagonizing IFN signaling.

    “Interaction mapping further suggested that NSP13 interacts with TBK1, NSP15 with NRDP1 (an E3 ubiquitin ligase controlling the balance between JAK2-associated cytokine receptor degradation and ectodomain shedding), ORF9b with TOMM70 (an important receptor of the outer mitochondrial membrane), and ORF6 with either KPNA2 or the IFN-induced NUP98-RAE1 nuclear export complex, which are both involved”

    From COVID-19 and the human innate immune system (2021) · cites this paper as Gordon et al., 2020

  • NSP16 suppresses global mRNA splicing and diminishes recognition of viral RNA by intracellular helicase receptors; NSP1 inhibits mRNA translation by binding 18S ribosomal RNA; NSP8 and NSP9 interfere with protein trafficking to the cell membrane; all three mechanisms independently reduce type I IFN production.

    “SARS-CoV-2-derived non-structural protein 16 (NSP16) suppresses global mRNA splicing and diminishes recognition of viral RNA by intracellular helicase receptors, NSP1 leads to global inhibition of mRNA translation by binding to the 18S ribosomal RNA in the mRNA entry channel, and NSP8 and NSP9 interfere with protein trafficking to the cell membrane; all three mechanisms independently leading to”

    From COVID-19 and the human innate immune system (2021) · cites this paper as Gordon et al., 2020

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [8]Sheahan TP An orally bioavailable broad-spectrum antiviral inhibits SARS-CoV-2 and multiple endemic, epidemic and bat coronavirus. bioRxiv 2020.03.19.997890 (2020) doi: 10.1101/2020.03.19.997890. PMC7164393 32253226 · DOI
  2. [53]Si L Human organs-on-chips as tools for repurposing approved drugs as potential influenza and COVID19 therapeutics in viral pandemics. bioRxiv 2020.04.13.039917 (2020) doi: 10.1101/2020.04.13.039917. · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Gordon, D. E., Jang, G. M., Bouhaddou, M., Xu, J., Obernier, K., White, K. M., O’Meara, M. J., Rezelj, V. V., Guo, J. Z., Swaney, D. L., Tummino, T. A., Hüttenhain, R., Kaake, R. M., Richards, A. L., Tutuncuoglu, B., Foussard, H., Batra, J., Haas, K., Modak, M., Kim, M., Haas, P., Polacco, B. J., Braberg, H., Fabius, J. M., Eckhardt, M., Soucheray, M., Bennett, M. J., Cakir, M., McGregor, M. J., Li, Q., Meyer, B., Roesch, F., Vallet, T., Mac Kain, A., Miorin, L., Moreno, E., Naing, Z. Z. C., Zhou, Y., Peng, S., Shi, Y., Zhang, Z., Shen, W., Kirby, I. T., Melnyk, J. E., Chorba, J. S., Lou, K., Dai, S. A., Barrio-Hernandez, I., Memon, D., Hernandez-Armenta, C., Lyu, J., Mathy, C. J. P., Perica, T., Pilla, K. B., Ganesan, S. J., Saltzberg, D. J., Rakesh, R., Liu, X., Rosenthal, S. B., Calviello, L., Venkataramanan, S., Liboy-Lugo, J., Lin, Y., Huang, X.-P., Liu, Y., Wankowicz, S. A., Bohn, M., Safari, M., Ugur, F. S., Koh, C., Savar, N. S., Tran, Q. D., Shengjuler, D., Fletcher, S. J., O’Neal, M. C., Cai, Y., Chang, J. C. J., Broadhurst, D. J., Klippsten, S., Sharp, P. P., Wenzell, N. A., Kuzuoglu-Ozturk, D., Wang, H.-Y., Trenker, R., Young, J. M., Cavero, D. A., Hiatt, J., Roth, T. L., Rathore, U., Subramanian, A., Noack, J., Hubert, M., Stroud, R. M., Frankel, A. D., Rosenberg, O. S., Verba, K. A., Agard, D. A., Ott, M., Emerman, M., Jura, N., von Zastrow, M., Verdin, E., Ashworth, A., Schwartz, O., d’Enfert, C., Mukherjee, S., Jacobson, M., Malik, H. S., Fujimori, D. G., Ideker, T., Craik, C. S., Floor, S. N., Fraser, J. S., Gross, J. D., Sali, A., Roth, B. L., Ruggero, D., Taunton, J., Kortemme, T., Beltrao, P., Vignuzzi, M., García-Sastre, A., Shokat, K. M., Shoichet, B. K., & Krogan, N. J.
Affiliations
  • Gladstone Institutes (US)
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (US)
  • University of Michigan (US)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
  • University of California, San Francisco (US)
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
  • European Bioinformatics Institute (GB)
  • University of California San Diego (US)
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
  • Fred Hutch Cancer Center (US)
  • Institut Pasteur (FR)
  • Buck Institute for Research on Aging (US)
Corresponding author
  • Vignuzzi, Marco
  • Shokat, Kevan M.
  • Shoichet, Brian K.
  • Krogan, Nevan J.
ORCID
Venue
Nature
Published
2020-04-30
Volume
583
Issue
7816
Pages
459-468
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W3022285953
Cited by
4,405
References
84
Citations by year
2026: 147 · 2025: 279 · 2024: 391 · 2023: 547 · 2022: 841 · 2021: 1352 · 2020: 837 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2012: 1
FWCI
117.80
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • U.S. Department of Defense (HR00111920020, W81XWH)
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • F. Hoffmann-La Roche
  • Agence Nationale de la Recherche (10-LABX-62-IBEID, ANR‐10‐LABX‐62‐IBEID, ANR-10, ANR-10-LABX-0062, grant ANR-10-LABX-62-IBEID, ANR-10-LABX-62)
  • National Institutes of Health (1f32ca236347-01, W81XWH, HHSN272201400008C)
  • National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K08HL124068)
  • National Institute of Mental Health
  • National Human Genome Research Institute (R01HG009979)
  • National Cancer Institute (F32CA239333, R01CA221969, F30CA239476, F32 CA236347, R01CA244550, P30CA023100, T32CA108462)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM140440, F32GM133144, R35GM118099, T32GM008284, R01GM117189, T32GM064337, T32GM067547, R01GM024485, R35GM122481)
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (HHSN272201400008C), R01AI120694, R01AI143292, R01AI122747, P50AI150476, ANR-10-LABX-62-IBEID, R01AI118974, T32AI060537, U19AI135990, P01AI063302, P01AI120943, U19AI135972, P30AI027763)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Computational Drug Discovery Methods
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 detection and testing
Keywords
SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 pandemic, protein-protein interaction, host factors, drug repurposing, antiviral drug targets, sigma-1 receptor, sigma-2 receptor, host-virus interaction, affinity purification mass spectrometry
MeSH terms
Protein Domains, Betacoronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 Drug Treatment, Animals, Antiviral Agents, Chlorocebus aethiops, Cloning, Molecular, Drug Evaluation, Preclinical, Humans, Immunity, Innate, Pneumonia, Viral, Protein Binding, Mass Spectrometry, Protein Biosynthesis, Vero Cells, Viral Proteins, Receptors, sigma, Coronavirus Infections, Protein Interaction Mapping, SKP Cullin F-Box Protein Ligases, Host-Pathogen Interactions, HEK293 Cells, Drug Repositioning, Pandemics, Molecular Targeted Therapy, Protein Interaction Maps

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review