Molecular simulation of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding to pangolin ACE2 or human ACE2 natural variants reveals altered susceptibility to infection

We constructed complex models of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binding to pangolin or human ACE2, the receptor for virus transmission, and estimated the binding free energy changes using molecular dynamics simulation. SARS-CoV-2 can bind to both pangolin and human ACE2, but has a significantly lower binding affinity for pangolin ACE2 due to the increased binding free energy (9.5 kcal mol(−1)). Human ACE2 is among the most polymorphous genes, for which we identified 317 missense single-nucleotide variations (SNVs) from the dbSNP database. Three SNVs, E329G (rs143936283), M82I (rs267606406) and K26R (rs4646116), had a significant reduction in binding free energy, which indicated higher binding affinity than wild-type ACE2 and greater susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection for people with them. Three other SNVs, D355N (rs961360700), E37K (rs146676783) and I21T (rs1244687367), had a significant increase in binding free energy, which indicated lower binding affinity and reduced susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection.