Structure and Inhibition of the SARS Coronavirus Envelope Protein Ion Channel

Pervushin, Konstantin; Tan, Edward; Parthasarathy, Krupakar; Lin, Xin; Jiang, Feng Li; Yu, Dejie; Vararattanavech, Ardcharaporn; Soong, Tuck Wah; Liu, Ding Xiang; Torres, Jaume

To determine if this channel activity is biologically relevant, this function must be associated to a structural organization compatible with an ion channel, together with electrophysiological studies performed using the complete polypeptide. Lastly, a correlation between inhibition and a molecular description of drug-channel interaction must be obtained. The data currently available, however, (see above) was obtained using synthetic transmembrane peptides or unpurified synthetic E proteins in non-physiological environments [35] [36] [37] , or using qualitative permeability assays [33, 34] , and the target of HMA was not unequivocally determined [36] .