{"doi":"10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105460","title":"Mapping immunological and host receptor binding determinants of SARS-CoV spike protein utilizing the Qubevirus platform","abstract":"The motifs involved in tropism and immunological interactions of SARS-CoV spike (S) protein were investigated utilizing the Qubevirus platform. We showed that separately, 14 overlapping peptide fragments representing the S protein (F1-14 of 100 residues each) could be inserted into the C terminus of A1 on recombinant Qubevirus without affecting its viability. Additionally, recombinant phage expression resulted in the surface exposure of different engineered fragments in an accessible manner. The F6 from S 425-525 was found to contain the binding determinant of the recombinant human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, with the shortest active binding motif situated between residues S 437-492 . Upstream, another fragment, F7, containing an overlapping portion of F6 would not bind to recombinant human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, confirming that a contiguous stretch of residues could adopt the appropriate structural orientation of F6 as an insertion within the Qubevirus. The F6 (S 441-460 ) and other inserts, including F7/F8 (S 601-620 ) and F10 (S 781-800 ), were demonstrated to contain important immunological determinants through recognition and binding of S protein specific (anti-S) antibodies. An engineered chimeric insert bearing the fusion of all three anti-S reactive epitopes improved substantially the recognition and binding to their cognate antibodies. These results provide insights into humoral immune relevant epitopes and tropism characteristics of the S protein with implications for the development of subunit vaccines or other biologics against SARS-CoV.","journal":"Journal of Biological Chemistry","year":2023,"id":383963,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9474,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1146227,"name":"Aristide Dzelamonyuy","orcid":"0000-0001-5543-4373","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1146226,"name":"Augustin Ntemafack","orcid":"0000-0003-0917-4376","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1114537,"name":"Nadia Al-Atoom","orcid":"0009-0008-3089-8030","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1146228,"name":"Godwin Nchinda","orcid":"0000-0003-0611-0561","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":468331,"name":"Millie M. Georgiadis","orcid":"0000-0003-2976-4576","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":822836,"name":"Alain Bopda Waffo","orcid":"0000-0002-0811-4649","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1151265,"name":"Carrie Sanders","orcid":"0000-0002-4904-9484","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":64,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:17:33.041385Z","pmid":"37977224","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}