Conformational variability of loops in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein
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The SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein facilitates viral infection, and has been the focus of many structure determination efforts. This paper studies the conformations of loops in the S protein based on the available Protein Data Bank (PDB) structures. Loops, as flexible regions of the protein, are known to be involved in binding and can adopt multiple conformations. We identify the loop regions of the S protein, and examine their structural variability across the PDB. While most loops had essentially one stable conformation, 17 of 44 loop regions were observed to be structurally variable with multiple substantively distinct conformations. Loop modeling methods were then applied to the S protein loop targets, and loops with multiple conformations were found to be more challenging for the methods to predict accurately. Sequence variants and the up/down structural states of the receptor binding domain were also considered in the analysis.
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