Kayabolen A, Akcan U, Özturan D, Ulbegi‐Polat H, Sahin GN, Pinarbasi‐Degirmenci N, Bayraktar C, Soyler G, Sarayloo E, Nurtop E, Ozer B, Guney‐Esken G, Barlas T, Yildirim IS, Dogan O, Karahuseyinoglu S, Lack NA, Kaya M, Albayrak C, Can F, Solaroglu I, Bagci‐Onder T. Protein Scaffold-Based Multimerization of Soluble ACE2 Efficiently Blocks SARS-CoV-2 Infection In Vitro and In Vivo.
Adv Sci (Weinh) 2022;
9:e2201294. [PMID:
35896894 PMCID:
PMC9353362 DOI:
10.1002/advs.202201294]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/05/2022] [Revised: 06/03/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Soluble ACE2 (sACE2) decoys are promising agents to inhibit SARS-CoV-2, as their efficiency is unlikely to be affected by escape mutations. However, their success is limited by their relatively poor potency. To address this challenge, multimeric sACE2 consisting of SunTag or MoonTag systems is developed. These systems are extremely effective in neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 in pseudoviral systems and in clinical isolates, perform better than the dimeric or trimeric sACE2, and exhibit greater than 100-fold neutralization efficiency, compared to monomeric sACE2. SunTag or MoonTag fused to a more potent sACE2 (v1) achieves a sub-nanomolar IC50 , comparable with clinical monoclonal antibodies. Pseudoviruses bearing mutations for variants of concern, including delta and omicron, are also neutralized efficiently with multimeric sACE2. Finally, therapeutic treatment of sACE2(v1)-MoonTag provides protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection in an in vivo mouse model. Therefore, highly potent multimeric sACE2 may offer a promising treatment approach against SARS-CoV-2 infections.
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