Potential host range of multiple SARS-like coronaviruses and an improved ACE2-Fc variant that is potent against both SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1

Yujun Li; Haimin Wang; Xiaojuan Tang; Danting Ma; Chengzhi Du; Yifei Wang; Hong Pan; Qing Zou; Jie Zheng; Liangde Xu; Michael Farzan; Guocai Zhong

The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.10.032342 doi: bioRxiv preprint or a vector plasmid control (Figs. 2a and b) . The flow cytometry data clearly show that, although 59 each of the four tested RBDs has a distinctive binding profile, they all can bind to a wide range of 60 ACE2 orthologs. Note that human ACE2 and ACE2 orthologs of all the domestic animals, except for 61 that of donkeys, guinea pigs, and chickens, support efficient binding to all the four tested RBDs. The 62 lack of any RBD binding to donkey ACE2 is likely due to a protein sequence defect, because 63 expression of the donkey ACE2 is detectable in 293T cells but a 22-residue fragment likely important 64 for ACE2 folding is missing in the Genbank sequence (Fig. 2c , and Extended Data Figs. 1 and 2b) . 65 These data suggest that ACE2 orthologs of domestic animals might be generally functional for 66 supporting cell entry of the four tested viruses. CoV-1, were respectively used to infect 293T cells expressing each of the seventeen ACE2 orthologs.