The team say their findings suggest that the pocket, which binds a small molecule, linoleic acid—an essential fatty acid indispensable for many cellular functions including inflammation and maintaining cell membranes in the lungs so that we can breathe properly—could now be exploited to treat all deadly coronaviruses, at the same time rendering them vulnerable to a linoleic acid-based treatment targeting this pocket.
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'The free fatty acid-binding pocket is a conserved hallmark in pathogenic b-coronavirus spike proteins from SARS-CoV to Omicron' by C Toelzer et al. in Science Advances