Research progress on coronavirus S proteins and their receptors

Abstract

Coronaviruses are a large family of important pathogens that cause human and animal diseases. At the end of 2019, a pneumonia epidemic caused by a novel coronavirus brought attention to coronaviruses. Exploring the interaction between the virus and its receptor will be helpful in developing preventive vaccines and therapeutic drugs. The coronavirus spike protein (S) plays an important role in both binding to receptors on host cells and fusion of the viral membrane with the host cell membrane. This review introduces the structure and function of the S protein and its receptor, focusing on the binding mode and binding region of both.