Key result
Remdesivir exhibited a higher binding affinity to the SARS-CoV-2 P323L-RdRp mutant (-24.1 kcal/mol) compared to the wild-type RdRp (-17.3 kcal/mol) in molecular dynamic simulations.
Absolute Event Rate: -24.1% vs -17.3%
Molecular dynamics simulations suggest remdesivir has a higher binding affinity for the SARS-CoV-2 P323L-RdRp mutant compared to wild-type.
Remdesivir may show enhanced activity vs P323L mutant; leaves open clinical relevance pending in vivo trials.
SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) protein is the target for the antiviral drug Remdesivir (RDV). With RDV clinical trials on COVID-19 patients showing a reduced hospitalisation time. During the spread of the virus, the RdRp has developed several mutations, with the most frequent being A97V and P323L. The current study sought to investigate whether A97V and P323L mutations influence the binding of RDV to the RdRp of SARS-CoV-2 compared to wild-type (WT). The interaction of RDV with WT-, A97V-, and P323L-RdRp were measured using molecular dynamic (MD) simulations, and the free binding energies were extracted. Results showed that RDV that bound to WT- and A97V-RdRp had a similar dynamic motion and internal residue fluctuations, whereas RDV interaction with P323L-RdRp exhibited a tighter molecular conformation, with a high internal motion near the active site. This was further corroborated with RDV showing a higher binding affinity to P323L-RdRp (-24.1 kcal/mol) in comparison to WT-RdRp (-17.3 kcal/mol). This study provides insight into the potential significance of administering RDV to patients carrying the SARS-CoV-2 P323L-RdRp mutation, which may have a more favourable chance of alleviating the SARS-CoV-2 illness in comparison to WT-RdRp carriers, thereby suggesting further scientific consensus for the usage of Remdesivir as clinical candidate against COVID-19.
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Mohammad et al. (2021) studied SARS-CoV-2. Remdesivir vs. Wild-type SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) was evaluated on Binding free energy (ΔG). Remdesivir exhibited a higher binding affinity to the SARS-CoV-2 P323L-RdRp mutant (-24.1 kcal/mol) compared to the wild-type RdRp (-17.3 kcal/mol) in molecular dynamic simulations.
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