With so much information swirling around these days about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it would be easy to miss one of the most interesting and significant basic science reports of the past few weeks.

Source NIH

It’s a paper published in the journal Science that presents an atomic-scale snapshot showing the 3D structure of the spike protein on the novel coronavirus attached to a human cell surface protein called ACE2, or angiotensin converting enzyme 2. ACE2 is the receptor that the virus uses to gain entry.

What makes this image such a big deal is that it shows—in exquisite detail—how the coronavirus attaches to human cells before infecting them and making people sick. The structural map of this interaction will help guide drug developers, atom by atom, in devising safe and effective ways to treat COVID-19.

This new work, conducted by a team led by Qiang Zhou, Westlake Institute for Advanced Study, Hangzhou, China, took advantage of a high-resolution imaging tool called cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). This approach involves flash-freezing molecules in liquid nitrogen and bombarding them with electrons to capture their images with a special camera. When all goes well, cryo-EM can solve the structure of intricate macromolecular complexes in a matter of days, including this one showing the interaction between a viral protein and human protein.

Zhou’s team began by mapping the structure of human ACE2 in a complex with B0AT1, which is a membrane protein that it helps to fold. In the context of this complex, ACE2 is a dimer—a scientific term for a compound composed of two very similar units. Additional mapping revealed how the surface protein of the novel coronavirus interacts with ACE2, indicating how the virus’s two trimeric (3-unit) spike proteins might bind to an ACE2 dimer. After confirmation by further research, these maps may well provide a basis for the design and development of therapeutics that specifically target this critical interaction.

The ACE2 protein resides on the surface of cells in many parts of the human body, including the heart and lungs. The protein is known to play a prominent role in the body’s complex system of regulating blood pressure. In fact, a class of drugs that inhibit ACE and related proteins are frequently prescribed to help control high blood pressure, or hypertension. These ACE inhibitors lower blood pressure by causing blood vessels to relax.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, many people have wondered whether taking ACE inhibitors would be helpful or detrimental against coronavirus infection. This is of particular concern to doctors whose patients are already taking the medications to control hypertension. Indeed, data from China and elsewhere indicate hypertension is one of several coexisting conditions that have consistently been reported to be more common among people with COVID-19 who develop life-threatening severe acute respiratory syndrome.

In a new report in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, a team of U.K. and U.S. researchers, partly supported by NIH, examined the use of ACE inhibitors and other angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) in people with COVID-19.

The team, led by Scott D. Solomon of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, concluded that given the common use of ACE inhibitors and ARBs worldwide, guidance on the use of these drugs in patients with Covid-19 is urgently needed.

The authors highlight that the data in humans are too limited to support or refute these hypotheses and concerns, specifically, discussing the uncertain effects of RAAS blockers on ACE2 levels
and activity in humans, and propose an alternative hypothesis that ACE2 may be beneficial rather than harmful in patients with lung injury.
They also explicitly raise the concern that withdrawal of RAAS inhibitors may be harmful in certain high-risk patients with known or suspected Covid-19.