SARS-CoV-2 Spike Reagents

The Spike Protein (S)

Coronavirus invades cells through spike (S) glycoproteins, a class I fusion protein. It is the major viral surface protein that coronavirus uses to bind to the human cell surface receptor. The S protein also mediates the fusion of the host and viral cell membranes. This allows the virus to enter human cells and begin infection (1).

The spike protein is the major target for neutralizing antibodies and vaccine development (2). The protein modeling suggests that there is a strong interaction between the spike protein receptor-binding domain and its host receptor angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), which regulates both the cross-species and human-to-human transmissions of COVID-19 (3). A recent study has shown that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds ACE2 with a higher affinity than SARS-CoV spike protein (4).

The spike protein in SARS-CoV-2 is heavily glycosylated. Therefore, it utilizes an N-terminal signal sequence to gain access to the ER, and mediate attachment to host receptors. It is the largest structure and makes distinct spikes on the surface of the virus.

For SARS-CoV-2, S protein is cleaved by cellular furin-like protease TMPRSS2 into two separate polypeptides S1 and S2. S1 also consists of a receptor-binding domain (RBD) which binds to the virus ACE2 receptor.

SARS-CoV-2 Spike Reagents

ProSci offers a catalog of SARS-CoV-2 spike reagents! This includes antibodies and recombinant proteins for the S1 and S2 subregions of the spike protein, the spike receptor-binding domain, and more.

ProSci has also developed a catalog of spike S1 single domain antibodies. These reagents can benefit your research due to their ability to target unique epitopes inaccessible by conventional antibodies!

Here are other reagents that ProSci also provides:

• Spike receptor-binding domain (RBD)
• The extracellular domain (ECD)
• IgM and IgA antibodies against spike
• Spike cleavage site antibodies and recombinant proteins

References

• Cuffari, B. (2021, February 24). What are Spike Proteins? News. https://www.news-medical.net/health/What-are-Spike-Proteins.aspx.
• (1) Belouzard et al. Viruses. 2012;4(6):1011-33.
• (2) Lee et al. J Virol. 2006;80(8):4079-87.
• (3) Wan et al. J Virol. 2020.
• (4) Wrapp et al. Science. 2020.