Graphene Oxide Nanosheets Interact and Interfere with SARS-CoV-2 Surface Proteins and Cell Receptors to Inhibit Infectivity
Nanotechnology can offer a number of options against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) acting both extracellularly and intracellularly to the host cells. Here, the aim is to explore graphene oxide (GO), the most studied 2D nanomaterial in biomedical applications, as a nanoscale platform for interaction with SARS-CoV-2. Molecular docking analyses of GO sheets on interaction with three different structures: SARS-CoV-2 viral spike (open state – 6VYB or closed state – 6VXX), ACE2 (1R42), and the ACE2-bound spike complex (6M0J) are performed. GO shows high affinity for the surface of all three structures (6M0J, 6VYB and 6VXX). When binding affinities and involved bonding types are compared, GO interacts more strongly with the spike or ACE2, compared to 6M0J. Infection experiments using infectious viral particles from four different clades as classified by Global Initiative on Sharing all Influenza Data (GISAID), are performed for validation purposes. Thin, biological-grade GO nanoscale (few hundred nanometers in lateral dimension) sheets are able to significantly reduce copies for three different viral clades. This data has demonstrated that GO sheets have the capacity to interact with SARS-CoV-2 surface components and disrupt infectivity even in the presence of any mutations on the viral spike. GO nanosheets are proposed to be further explored as a nanoscale platform for development of antiviral strategies against COVID-19. ; M.A.U. and F.B. contributed equally to this work. L.G.D. acknowledges the Starting Grant 2020 from the Department of Biomedical Science, University of Padua. K.K. acknowledges financial support from the UKRI EPSRC Programme Grant 2D-Health (project EP/P00119X/1) and the European Union Horizon 2020 Graphene Flagship project under grant agreement GrapheneCore2 785219. A.Y. is thankful to the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA) for financial support under the young investigator programme. M.A.U., H.N., K.C.A., and A.Y. would like to acknowledge the funding by the Scientific and Technology Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under the grant 18AG020.