SARS-CoV-2 mPRO: The Ship Came Into the Harbor

The COVID-19 pandemic may be one of the most impactful, and science-accelerating events in modern history. Having claimed over 6 million lives worldwide at the time of writing, it has shaped the way the scientific community operates on a political, analytical, and collaborative scale. It comes as no surprise then, that the rate of research and development for treatments for this immeasurably complex virus, has been far beyond what has been seen in the past. I present a PyMOL rendering presentation of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (mPRO) interacting with half of the antivrial drug, Paxlovid. The interaction shown is the inhibitor, Nirmatrelvir, blocking the action of the mPRO. An effective protease must exhibit solid anchoring points for the inhibition to have any meaningful or long lasting effect. Therefore the main focus of this presentation will be the anchor points that provide a stable base for Nirmatrelvir to be successful. The mPRO residues have green carbons, and the inhibitor has cyan.