Bruker Supports International Covid19-NMR Consortium for Structure-Function & Inhibitor Binding Investigations of SARS-CoV-2 ...
August 10 2020 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
Bruker Corporation (Nasdaq: BRKR) today announced its support of
a worldwide collaborative project that investigates the structures,
dynamics, function and binding of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA and proteins
using high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The
Covid19-NMR (https://covid19-nmr.de/) consortium was
initiated at Goethe University (GU) in Frankfurt, Germany, and
leverages the extensive experience of the GU Biological Magnetic
Resonance Center (http://www.bmrz.de/) and of 30 consortium groups
in 15 countries in high-field NMR, structural biology, and small
molecule drug screening.
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The fight against the global COVID-19 pandemic is one of the
greatest challenges currently facing mankind. The international
Covid19-NMR consortium aims to determine the dynamics,
function and potential for therapeutic intervention of the
ribonucleic acid (RNA) and protein structures of SARS-CoV-2, with a
focus on investigating the potential of small molecule drugs to
bind to these viral biopolymer structures. The results are made
publicly available prior to publication in order to communicate
progress quickly and to a wide research network.
Goethe University-Professor Harald Schwalbe, a founder and the
coordinator of the Covid19-NMR consortium, commented: “Since
the beginning of the Covid19-NMR project, we have
collaborated closely with Bruker. Bruker offers us access to its
research facilities, support for our NMR spectrometers, as well as
analysis software. The Covid19-NMR consortium, now with 140
researchers in 30 research groups in Europe, the Americas and
India, benefits greatly from this collaboration, and we are
fortunate to have Bruker as a key partner.”
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is comprised of almost 30,000 nucleotides
in the RNA genome, which encode for around 30 proteins. The
Covid19-NMR consortium has focused on NMR-based
determination of secondary structures of the cis-regulatory
structured RNA elements in the 5’- and 3’-UTRs of the viral genome,
and the consortium has carried out fragment-based ligand screening
of RNA target structures using both Bruker and consortium member
NMR libraries.
As an example, high-resolution NMR spectroscopy using two Bruker
600 MHz spectrometers allowed the complete screening of 768 small
molecule compounds in 54 hours. Among the 14 RNAs screened against
these compounds, the SARS-CoV frameshifting pseudoknot (PK) – one
of the best characterized cis-acting RNA elements in the SARS-CoV-1
virus – was investigated further. Previous research discovered that
a compound targeting a specific region of the PK, called ‘loop 3’,
significantly inhibited virus growth, and Covid19-NMR group
confirmed that the structure of this region is identical to that in
SARS-CoV-2, qualifying it as a prime RNA target for fragment-based
screening. It was subsequently regarded as a potential drug
discovery ‘hit’. Other study examples such as the protein
assignment of Nsp3b (Macrodomain) have been performed on high-field
NMR technology at 1.2 GHz.
Dr. Rainer Kuemmerle, Global Head of Applications at Bruker
BioSpin, stated: “Only NMR spectroscopy can obtain structural,
functional and binding information under near-physiological
conditions. Valuable insights can be gathered about the location,
affinity and kinetics of ligand binding, and researchers can
visualize the conformational changes taking place at the RNA or
protein binding site in order to better understand potential small
molecule inhibitor efficacy.”
For more information about the Covid-19-NMR consortium,
please visit https://covid19-nmr.de/, or watch the on-demand
webinar:
https://www.bruker.com/events/webinars/secondary-structure-determination-of-conserved-sars-cov-2-rna-elements-by-nmr-spectroscopy.html
For more information about Bruker’s NMR spectroscopy solutions,
please visit https://www.bruker.com/products/mr/nmr.html
About the Covid-19-NMR Consortium
The Covid19-NMR Consortium was initiated at the Goethe
University in Frankfurt in March 2020, and it has quickly grown
into an international consortium. Today, 140 scientists from 30
research groups in 15 countries are collaborating in a unique
effort to investigate SARS-CoV-2 using NMR spectroscopy, based on
open science principles. The goals, and the shared scientific
targets of the project, are coordinated by Professor Harald
Schwalbe and his team at GU Frankfurt.
The core team includes five professors and junior group leaders
from Darmstadt and Frankfurt and nine senior scientists from the
Biological Magnetic Resonance Center (BMRZ), Frankfurt. This core
team sets out and coordinates the research tasks carried out in
Frankfurt as well as in research groups from all over the world.
The overall goal of the consortium is to join forces to achieve
excellent scientific results as quickly as possible. To communicate
research progress rapidly, the consortium uses this website to make
results available and communicate progress. To this end, the
consortium is supported by the startup company SIGNALS from
Frankfurt.
About Bruker Corporation (Nasdaq: BRKR)
Bruker is enabling scientists to make breakthrough discoveries
and develop new applications that improve the quality of human
life. Bruker’s high-performance scientific instruments and
high-value analytical and diagnostic solutions enable scientists to
explore life and materials at molecular, cellular and microscopic
levels. In close cooperation with our customers, Bruker is enabling
innovation, improved productivity and customer success in life
science molecular research, in applied and pharma applications, in
microscopy and nanoanalysis, and in industrial applications, as
well as in cell biology, preclinical imaging, clinical phenomics
and proteomics research and clinical microbiology. For more
information, please visit: www.bruker.com.
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Media and Customer: Thorsten Thiel, Ph.D. VP of Group
Marketing Bruker BioSpin T: +49 (721) 5161-6500 E:
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& Corporate Development T: +1 (978) 663-3660 x1479 E:
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