Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Spike Protein Is Not Activated Directly by Cellular Furin during Viral Entry into Target Cells

作者：Shutoku Matsuyama, Kazuya Shirato, Miyuki Kawase, Yutaka Terada, Kengo Kawachi, Shuetsu Fukushi, Wataru Kamitani · 发表于：Journal of Virology · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.1128/jvi.00683-18 · 被引用次数：73 · 研究领域：SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research、Animal Virus Infections Studies、Viral gastroenteritis research and epidemiology

Previous studies using the furin inhibitor dec-RVKR-CMK suggest that MERS-CoV utilizes a cellular protease, furin, to activate viral glycoproteins during cell entry. However, we found that dec-RVKR-CMK inhibits not only furin but also other proteases. Furthermore, we found no evidence that MERS-CoV uses furin. These findings suggest that previous studies in the virology field based on dec-RVKR-CMK should be reexamined carefully. Here we describe appropriate experiments that can be used to assess the effect of protease inhibitors on virus cell entry.