- Singh, Isha;
- Li, Fengling;
- Fink, Elissa A;
- Chau, Irene;
- Li, Alice;
- Rodriguez-Hernández, Annía;
- Glenn, Isabella;
- Zapatero-Belinchón, Francisco J;
- Rodriguez, M Luis;
- Devkota, Kanchan;
- Deng, Zhijie;
- White, Kris;
- Wan, Xiaobo;
- Tolmachova, Nataliya A;
- Moroz, Yurii S;
- Kaniskan, H Ümit;
- Ott, Melanie;
- García-Sastre, Adolfo;
- Jin, Jian;
- Fujimori, Danica Galonić;
- Irwin, John J;
- Vedadi, Masoud;
- Shoichet, Brian K
An under-explored target for SARS-CoV-2 is the S-adenosyl methionine (SAM)-dependent methyltransferase Nsp14, which methylates the N7-guanosine of viral RNA at the 5'-end, allowing the virus to evade host immune response. We sought new Nsp14 inhibitors with three large library docking strategies. First, up to 1.1 billion lead-like molecules were docked against the enzyme's SAM site, leading to three inhibitors with IC50 values from 6 to 50 μM. Second, docking a library of 16 million fragments revealed 9 new inhibitors with IC50 values from 12 to 341 μM. Third, docking a library of 25 million electrophiles to covalently modify Cys387 revealed 7 inhibitors with IC50 values from 3.5 to 39 μM. Overall, 32 inhibitors encompassing 11 chemotypes had IC50 values < 50 μM and 5 inhibitors in 4 chemotypes had IC50 values < 10 μM. These molecules are among the first non-SAM-like inhibitors of Nsp14, providing starting points for future optimization.