Determination of the denaturation temperature of the Spike protein S1 of SARS-CoV-2 (2019 nCoV) by Raman spectroscopy

In the present work the temperature response of the constitutive S1 segment of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein (GPS) has been studied. The intensity of the Raman bands remained almost constant before reaching a temperature of 133 °C. At this temperature a significant reduction of peak intensities was observed. Above 144 °C the spectra ceased to show any recognizable feature as that of the GPS S1, indicating that it had transformed after the denaturation process that it was subjected. The GPS S1 change is irreversible. Hence, Raman Spectroscopy (RS) provides a precision method to determine the denaturation temperature (T(D)) of dry powder GPS S1. The ability of RS was calibrated through the reproduction of T(D) of other well studied proteins as well as those of the decomposition temperature of some amino acids (AA). Through this study we established a T(D) of 139 ± 3 °C for powder GPS S1 of SARS-CoV-2.