Fig. 5: Mechanical force dramatically accelerates SARS2-S S1/S2 detachment, which is significantly impeded by an S1/S2-binding and neutralizing antibody derived from COVID-19 patients.
From: Mechanical activation of spike fosters SARS-CoV-2 viral infection
a Sequential SMD snapshots of SARS2-SWT S1/S2 detachment under pulling force. The anchoring and force pulling residues (gray ball), force direction (black dashed arrow), and timestamps for all snapshots are indicated. b Schematic diagram of the design of SARS2-SWT with a C-terminal biotin tag (up panel) for single-molecule MT pulling experiments (bottom panel). c–h Representative force stretching curves from single-molecule MT pulling experiment to demonstrate force-induced S1/S2 detachment of SARS2-SWT in the absence (c) or presence of neutralizing (3H3) (d) or non-neutralizing S2-binding antibody (4A10) (e). Their respective histograms of S1/S2 detaching distances (f) and forces (g) are compared. The mean values (matched colors) obtained by Gaussian fitting are indicated respectively. Their force-dependent detachment rates derived from Bell model are compared in h.
