p97/VCP as a therapy target for developing drugs against human coronavirus

Understanding how human coronavirus dysregulate host proteome during infection in human cells will identify general pathways that are common to coronavirus infection. NMS-873 is an allosteric p97/VCP ATPase inhibitor and was show to have antiviral effect in multiple viruses including SARS-CoV2. We first demonstrated that genetic knock down of p97 reduced HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43 infection and secretion. To investigate how p97/VCP assists virus infection, we used unbiased quantitative proteomics to compare dysregulated proteomes caused by HCoV-229E, HCoV-OC43 and SARS-CoV2 infection. We then compared dysregulated proteomes after HCoV-229E and HCoV-OC43 infection with and without p97 knockdown. Moreover, we elucidated the impact of p97 on different stages of viral life cycle using two potent p97 inhibitors, CB-5083 and NMS-873 and demonstrate their can block HCoV replication. Together, our data provide insights to repurpose potential cancer drugs that target the essential host protein p97/VCP.