{"doi":"10.17615/3fd9-db40","title":"Crystal Structure of the Receptor-Binding Domain from Newly Emerged Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus","abstract":"The newly emerged Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has infected at least 77 people, with a fatality rate of more than 50%. Alarmingly, the virus demonstrates the capability of human-to-human transmission, raising the possibility of global spread and endangering world health and economy. Here we have identified the receptor-binding domain (RBD) from the MERS-CoV spike protein and determined its crystal structure. This study also presents a structural comparison of MERS-CoV RBD with other coronavirus RBDs, successfully positioning MERS-CoV on the landscape of coronavirus evolution and providing insights into receptor binding by MERS-CoV. Furthermore, we found that MERS-CoV RBD functions as an effective entry inhibitor of MERS-CoV. The identified MERS-CoV RBD may also serve as a potential candidate for MERS-CoV subunit vaccines. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of the evolution of coronavirus RBDs, provides insights into receptor recognition by MERS-CoV, and may help control the transmission of MERS-CoV in humans.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":108457,"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":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9412,"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":300195,"name":"Sudhakar Agnihothram","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266557,"name":"Yao-Qing Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-4659-1550","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":515184,"name":"Chang Liu","orcid":"0000-0003-1829-0117","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":5952,"name":"Ralph S. Baric","orcid":"0000-0001-6827-8701","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":245735,"name":"Yang Yang","orcid":"0000-0001-9061-3828","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":139719,"name":"Yi-Lun Lin","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":103706,"name":"Fang Li","orcid":"0000-0002-1958-366X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":520126,"name":"Kanagalaghatta R. Rajashankar","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:12:43.081337Z","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":[]}