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

A wide range of ACE2 orthologs support binding to RBD proteins of SARS-CoV-2, Pangolin-48 CoV, Bat-CoV RaTG13, and SARS-CoV-1 49 The RBD of SARS-CoV-2, like that of SARS-CoV-1, mainly relies on residues in its receptor binding 50 motif (RBM) to bind ACE2 (Figs. 1a and b) [17] [18] [19] . Through analyzing ACE2 residues that are within 5 51 Ã… from SARS-CoV-2 RBD atoms, we found that these residues are highly conserved across the 52 seventeen analyzed ACE2 orthologs, including human ACE2 and ACE2 orthologs of sixteen domestic Pangolin-CoV, and SARS-CoV-1 BJ01 (Extended Data Fig. 2a) . These RBD proteins were then 57 used to perform surface staining of 293T cells transfected with each of the seventeen ACE2 orthologs 58 author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.