NRP1 is a dynamic receptor that senses the microscopic cellular environment through the recognition of proteins containing specific neuropilin-binding sequences, called ligands. By mimicking this neuropilin-binding sequence, SARS-CoV-2 is able to subvert this receptor to enhance its entry and infection of human cells.
The function of this pathway is still not completely clear, but the team found that using gene editing to remove ESCPE-1 from human cells effectively blocked SARS-CoV-2 infection by around 50%, suggesting that this process is beneficially hijacked by the virus during the infection process.
Paper: Simonetti B et al. (2022). ESCPE-1 mediates retrograde endosomal sorting of the SARS-CoV-2 host factor Neuropilin-1. PNAS.