SPIKE protein of SARS-CoV-2

Spike is a membrane protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. It is 1273 amino acids long and is made up of three chains, each made up of two subunits called S1 and S2. In S1 is the RBD (Receptor Binding Domain, yellow), between amino acid 333 and 527. Within this sequence, between amino acids 438 and 506, is the RBM (Receptor Binding Motif, magenta), a precise region that allows binding with the human cell receptor (Wrap et al., 2020 Science; Lan et al., 2020 Nature). In a region close to RBD and RBM, a binding site of the S2H97 antibody is found, which according to a recent publication, has the ability to block the fusion of coronaviruses, including the Delta variety (Starr, et al., 2021, Nature, Red)In the S2 sequence, very close to the binding site with S1, there is a sequence between amino acids 798 and 837 called Fusion Peptide (FP, green), essential for the binding of the virus with the host membrane (Jaimes et al, 2020. BioRxiv)