{"doi":"10.1101/2020.06.26.173765","title":"Glycans on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Control the Receptor Binding Domain Conformation","abstract":"The glycan shield of the beta-coronavirus (β-CoV) Spike (S) glycoprotein provides protection from host immune responses, acting as a steric block to potentially neutralizing antibody responses. The conformationally dynamic S-protein is the primary immunogenic target of vaccine design owing to its role in host-cell fusion, displaying multiple receptor binding domain (RBD) 'up' and 'down' state configurations. Here, we investigated the potential for RBD adjacent, N-terminal domain (NTD) glycans to influence the conformational equilibrium of these RBD states. Using a combination of antigenic screens and high-resolution cryo-EM structure determination, we show that an N-glycan deletion at position 234 results in a dramatically reduced population of the 'up' state RBD position. Conversely, glycan deletion at position N165 results in a discernable increase in 'up' state RBDs. This indicates the glycan shield acts not only as a passive hinderance to antibody meditated immunity but also as a conformational control element. Together, our results demonstrate this highly dynamic conformational machine is responsive to glycan modification with implications in viral escape and vaccine design.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":118546,"datarank":0.62147020895873,"base_score":4.143134726391533,"endowment":4.143134726391533,"self_citation_contribution":0.62147020895873,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.62147020895873,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":62,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9613,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":227358,"name":"Robert J. Edwards","orcid":"0000-0003-4446-1194","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227359,"name":"Katayoun Mansouri","orcid":"0000-0001-6232-7330","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227360,"name":"Katarzyna Janowska","orcid":"0000-0002-7936-2244","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227361,"name":"Victoria Stalls","orcid":"0000-0002-1878-0581","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227362,"name":"Megan Kopp","orcid":"0000-0002-6151-1571","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":96347,"name":"Barton F. Haynes","orcid":"0000-0002-7643-9023","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227366,"name":"Priyamvada Acharya","orcid":"0000-0002-0089-277X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227357,"name":"Rory Henderson","orcid":"0000-0002-4301-6382","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":38,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:13:58.531532Z","pmid":"32637959","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":[]}