Structural basis of coronavirus E protein interactions with human PALS1 PDZ domain

SARS-CoV-2 infection leads to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is associated with severe and life-threatening pneumonia and respiratory failure. However, the molecular basis of these symptoms remains unclear. SARS-CoV-1 E protein interferes with control of cell polarity and cell-cell junction integrity in human epithelial cells by binding to the PALS1 PDZ domain, a key component of the Crumbs polarity complex. We show that C-terminal PDZ binding motifs of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 E proteins bind the PALS1 PDZ domain with 29.6 and 22.8 μM affinity, whereas the related sequence from MERS-CoV did not bind. We then determined crystal structures of PALS1 PDZ domain bound to both SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 E protein PDZ binding motifs. Our findings establish the structural basis for SARS-CoV-1/2 mediated subversion of Crumbs polarity signalling and serve as a platform for the development of small molecule inhibitors to suppress SARS-CoV-1/2 mediated disruption of polarity signalling in epithelial cells.

1 Overall quality at a glance i O The following experimental techniques were used to determine the structure:

X-RAY DIFFRACTION
The reported resolution of this entry is 1.74 Å.
Percentile scores (ranging between 0-100) for global validation metrics of the entry are shown in the following graphic. The table shows the number of entries on which the scores are based.

Metric
Whole archive (#Entries) Similar resolution (#Entries, resolution range(Å)) R The table below summarises the geometric issues observed across the polymeric chains and their t to the electron density. The red, orange, yellow and green segments of the lower bar indicate the fraction of residues that contain outliers for >=3, 2, 1 and 0 types of geometric quality criteria respectively. A grey segment represents the fraction of residues that are not modelled. The numeric value for each fraction is indicated below the corresponding segment, with a dot representing fractions <=5% The upper red bar (where present) indicates the fraction of residues that have poor t to the electron density. The numeric value is given above the bar.
Mol Chain Length Quality of chain In the tables below, the ZeroOcc column contains the number of atoms modelled with zero occupancy, the AltConf column contains the number of residues with at least one atom in alternate conformation and the Trace column contains the number of residues modelled with at most 2 atoms.
Molecule 1 is a protein called MAGUK p55 subfamily member 5. 3 Residue-property plots i O These plots are drawn for all protein, RNA, DNA and oligosaccharide chains in the entry. The rst graphic for a chain summarises the proportions of the various outlier classes displayed in the second graphic. The second graphic shows the sequence view annotated by issues in geometry and electron density. Residues are color-coded according to the number of geometric quality criteria for which they contain at least one outlier: green = 0, yellow = 1, orange = 2 and red = 3 or more. A red dot above a residue indicates a poor t to the electron density (RSRZ > 2). Stretches of 2 or more consecutive residues without any outlier are shown as a green connector. Residues present in the sample, but not in the model, are shown in grey.

Mol Chain Residues
• Molecule 1: MAGUK p55 subfamily member 5 Chain B:  All  All  1686  1431  1431  2  2 The all-atom clashscore is dened as the number of clashes found per 1000 atoms (including hydrogen atoms). The all-atom clashscore for this structure is 1.

Mol Chain Non-H H(model) H(added) Clashes Symm-Clashes
All (2)  In the following table, the Percentiles column shows the percent Ramachandran outliers of the chain as a percentile score with respect to all X-ray entries followed by that with respect to entries of similar resolution.
The Analysed column shows the number of residues for which the backbone conformation was analysed, and the total number of residues.  (and percentage) of RSRZ outliers, followed by percent RSRZ outliers for the chain as percentile scores relative to all X-ray entries and entries of similar resolution. The OWAB column contains the minimum, median, 95 th percentile and maximum values of the occupancy-weighted average B-factor per residue. The column labelled`Q< 0.9' lists the number of (and percentage) of residues with an average occupancy less than 0.9.