Evidence map›Paper›PMID 16306590›Full record

ArticleJournal of virology2005

The papain-like protease of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus has deubiquitinating activity.

Naina Barretto, Dalia Jukneliene, Kiira Ratia, Zhongbin Chen, Andrew D Mesecar, Susan C Baker

Open access · greenAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of virology, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 370 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
370citing papers in PubMed
6.9field-weighted citation impact, top 2% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

370 citing papers in PubMed, 608 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Structural analysis of the flexibility of the Ubl2 domain within the papain-like protease of SARS-CoV-2.Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
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  7. Article
  8. Review
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Inhibiting Infectious Bronchitis Virus PLpro Using Ubiquitin Variants.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Identifying Inhibitor-SARS-CoV2-3CLMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
    Article

310 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Naina BarrettoDepartment of Microbiology and Immunology, Loyola University Chicago, Stritch School of Medicine, 2160 South First Avenue, Bldg. 105, Maywood, IL 60153, USA.
Dalia Jukneliene
Kiira Ratia
Zhongbin Chen
Andrew D Mesecar
Susan C Baker
Loyola University Chicago · USUniversity of Illinois Chicago · US

Funding

Protein Expression and PurificationP01AI060915 · NIAID · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO · PI JOHNSON, MICHAEL E. · 2005 to 2009
$7.7M
Experimental Immunology Training GrantT32AI007508 · NIAID · LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO · PI KNIGHT, KATHERINE L. · 1997 to 2022
$4.0M
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE CORONAVIRUS REPLICASER01AI045798 · NIAID · LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO · PI BAKER, SUSAN C. · 2001 to 2005
$1.5M
NIAID NIH HHS AI45798NIAID NIH HHS P01 AI060915NIAID NIH HHS R01 AI045798NIAID NIH HHS T32 AI007508
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Replication of the genomic RNA of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is mediated by replicase polyproteins that are processed by two viral proteases, papain-like protease (PLpro) and 3C-like protease (3CLpro). Previously, we showed that SARS-CoV PLpro processes the replicase polyprotein at three conserved cleavage sites. Here, we report the identification and characterization of a 316-amino-acid catalytic core domain of PLpro that can efficiently cleave replicase substrates in trans-cleavage assays and peptide substrates in fluorescent resonance energy transfer-based protease assays. We performed bioinformatics analysis on 16 papain-like protease domains from nine different coronaviruses and identified a putative catalytic triad (Cys1651-His1812-Asp1826) and zinc-binding site. Mutagenesis studies revealed that Asp1826 and the four cysteine residues involved in zinc binding are essential for SARS-CoV PLpro activity. Molecular modeling of SARS-CoV PLpro suggested that this catalytic core may also have deubiquitinating activity. We tested this hypothesis by measuring the deubiquitinating activity of PLpro by two independent assays. SARS CoV-PLpro hydrolyzed both diubiquitin and ubiquitin-7-amino-4-methylcoumarin (AMC) substrates, and hydrolysis of ubiquitin-AMC is approximately 180-fold more efficient than hydrolysis of a peptide substrate that mimics the PLpro replicase recognition sequence. To investigate the critical determinants recognized by PLpro, we performed site-directed mutagenesis on the P6 to P2' residues at each of the three PLpro cleavage sites. We found that PLpro recognizes the consensus cleavage sequence LXGG, which is also the consensus sequence recognized by cellular deubiquitinating enzymes. This similarity in the substrate recognition sites should be considered during the development of SARS-CoV PLpro inhibitors.

Indexed as

Amino Acid SequenceCatalytic DomainHeLa CellsHumansMolecular Sequence DataPapainPeptide HydrolasesSevere acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirusSubstrate SpecificityUbiquitinPapainPeptide HydrolasesUbiquitin

Identifiers

PMID16306590
PMCPMC1316023
OpenAlexW2022879707

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.