Poster Presentation The 46th Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function 2021

High-throughput screens for small molecules targeting SARS-CoV-2 Main protease (#317)

Marija Dramicanin 1 , Ahmad Wardak 1 , Amanda Au 1 , Jason Corbin 1 , Will Shenton 1 , Danielle Tilmanis 1 , Jeff Babon 1 , Kate Jarman 1 , Peter Czabotar 1 , Jeff Mitchell 1 , Kym Lowes 1
  1. Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, VIC, Australia

WEHI’s National Drug Discovery Centre (NDDC) is a cutting-edge high-throughput screening (HTS) facility that uses robotic platforms to rapidly identify bioactive compounds during the early stages of drug discovery. This state-of-the-art facility provides the ability to screen libraries of hundreds of thousands of drug-like compounds against medically relevant biomolecules and biological systems. The NDDC offers subsidised screening to Australian researchers through a competitive application process, thanks to generous financial support from WEHI, the Australian and Victorian Governments, and philanthropic donors. The recent breadth and severity of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have created an urgent need for the development of therapeutics to prevent infection and to treat the virus. The SARS-CoV-2 Main protease (Mpro) is a virally encoded protease that mediates cleavage of the SARS-CoV-2 polyprotein. Mpro function is essential for productive SARS-CoV-2 infection and it is considered to be one of the most attractive targets for the development of drugs to treat COVID-19. At the NDDC, we have identified novel inhibitors of Mpro by screening a library of over 400,000 small molecules. Here, we present the production of recombinant Mpro, the development of an HTS-amenable FRET-based assay, and the utilisation of this assay in the pilot, primary, and confirmation compound screening. The discovery of potent inhibitory molecules from this screen provides a starting point for the development of new drugs as therapies in the treatment of COVID-19. Our project to identify Mpro inhibitors illustrates the use of the NDDC for HTS and will be of special interest to researchers seeking to access this facility.

 

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  3. Douangamath A. et al., Nature Communications 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18709-w)