Professor Chris Schofield’s research group, in a collaboration with scientists at Diamond Light Source and the Research Complex at Harwell, have developed an efficient mass spectrometry-based method to measure the protease activity of SARS-CoV-2 PLpro in the laboratory.
Proteases are enzymes that catalyse the hydrolysis of proteins and peptide into smaller fragements, and PLpro is one of two that are encoded for in the SARS-CoV-2 genome, responsible for replication of the virus that causes COVID-19. The development of small-molecule antivirals that efficiently suppress PLpro activity is particularly attractive to treat COVID-19, and the team’s newly-developed method will hopefully be used to accelerate drug discovery campaigns aimed at identifying small-molecules that efficiently suppress SARS-CoV-2 activity.
For the full story you can read more from the Research Complex at Harwell, and the results of the study were recently published in the journal ChemMedChem.
