Neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 spike pseudotyped virus by recombinant ACE2-Ig
Changhai Lei, Kewen Qian, Tian Li, Sheng Zhang, Wenyan Fu, Min Ding & Shi Hu
Nature Communications volume 11, Article number: 2070 (2020)
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, and there are currently no specific antiviral treatments or vaccines available. SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to use the same cell entry receptor as SARS-CoV, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). In this report, we generate a recombinant protein by connecting the extracellular domain of human ACE2 to the Fc region of the human immunoglobulin IgG1. A fusion protein containing an ACE2 mutant with low catalytic activity is also used in this study.