{"doi":"10.1101/2020.09.16.300319","title":"A soluble ACE2 microbody protein fused to a single immunoglobulin Fc domain is a potent inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 infection in cell culture","abstract":"Summary Soluble forms of ACE2 have recently been shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection. We report on an improved soluble ACE2, termed a “microbody” in which the ACE2 ectodomain is fused to Fc domain 3 of the immunoglobulin heavy chain. The protein is smaller than previously described ACE2-Ig Fc fusion proteins and contains an H345A mutation in the ACE2 catalytic active site that inactivates the enzyme without reducing its affinity for the SARS-CoV-2 spike. The disulfide-bonded ACE2 microbody protein inhibited entry of lentiviral SARS-CoV-2 spike protein pseudotyped virus and live SARS-CoV-2 with a potency 10-fold higher than unmodified soluble ACE2 and was active after initial virus binding to the cell. The ACE2 microbody inhibited the entry of ACE2-specific β coronaviruses and viruses with the high infectivity variant D614G spike. The ACE2 microbody may be a valuable therapeutic for COVID-19 that is active against SARS-CoV-2 variants and future coronaviruses that may arise.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":125369,"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":0.9508,"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":292172,"name":"Fan Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-5739-2776","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":292173,"name":"Ramanjit Kaur","orcid":"0000-0002-4627-415X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275573,"name":"Kenneth A. Stapleford","orcid":"0000-0002-7796-2254","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105098,"name":"Harry B. Gristick","orcid":"0000-0002-1957-2821","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258063,"name":"Crina M. Nimigean","orcid":"0000-0002-6254-4447","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":16989,"name":"Nathaniel R. Landau","orcid":"0000-0002-9997-1004","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":16988,"name":"Takuya Tada","orcid":"0000-0003-0779-9954","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":57,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:15.482227Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}