Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Virol. May 25, 2022; 11(3): 144-149
Published online May 25, 2022. doi: 10.5501/wjv.v11.i3.144
Omicron variant and change of electrostatic interactions between receptor binding domain of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 with the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor
Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip, Viroj Wiwanitkit
Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip, Consultant, Private Consultant, Bangkok 102002022, Thailand
Viroj Wiwanitkit, Department of Community Medicine, Dr. DY Patil University, Pune 310330, India
Author contributions: Mungmunpuntipantip R and Wiwanitkit V contributed to study conception and design, acquisition of data, and analysis and interpretation of data; Mungmunpuntipantip R drafted the article, revised it critically for important intellectual content, and approved the version of the article to be published
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Rujittika Mungmunpuntipantip, PhD, Academic Research, Additional Professor, Consultant, Private Consultant, Bangkok 102002022, Thailand. rujittika@gmail.com
Received: December 16, 2021
Peer-review started: December 16, 2021
First decision: February 21, 2022
Revised: February 21, 2022
Accepted: April 26, 2022
Article in press: April 26, 2022
Published online: May 25, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants are currently a new hazard. Since the first appearance of classical SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019, pathogen genetic alterations have continued to occur, and some new hazardous forms have already emerged. The underlying pathophysiological process leading to clinical issue is molecular change caused by genetic mutation.

AIM

To determine the change in the interaction between receptor binding domain of omicron variant SARS-CoV-2 and the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2).

METHODS

The researchers investigated how alterations in the binding area of the SARS receptor CoV2 interacted electrostatically with the ACE2 receptor. In this report, three important coronavirus disease 2019 variants, beta, delta, and omicron, were investigated.

RESULTS

According to this study, there was a change of electrostatic interactions between the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 with the ACE2 receptor due to each studied variant. The most change was detected in omicron variant followed by delta variant and beta variant.

CONCLUSION

Our results may support the clinical finding that the omicron variant is more transmissible than the wild type and other variants.

Keywords: Omicron, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, ACE2, Electrostatic

Core Tip: Change of electrostatic interactions between receptor binding domain of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 with the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 receptor can support the clinical observation that the omicron variant has increased transmissibility compared to the wild type and other variants.