Engineering customized viral receptors for various coronaviruses

Abstract Coronaviruses display versatile receptor usage, yet in-depth characterization of coronaviruses lacking known receptor identities has been impeded by the absence of feasible infection models1,2. Here, we developed an innovative strategy to engineer functional customized viral receptors (CVRs). The modular design relies on building receptor frameworks comprising various function modules and generating specific epitope-targeting viral binding domains. We showed the key factors for CVRs to efficiently facilitate spike cleavage, membrane fusion, pseudovirus entry, and authentic virus propagation for various coronaviruses, resembling their native receptors. Applying this strategy, we delineated the accessible receptor binding epitopes for functional SARS-CoV-2 CVR design and elucidated the mechanism of entry supported by an amino-terminus domain (NTD) targeting S2L20-CVR. Furthermore, we created CVR-expressing cells for assessing antibodies and inhibitors against 12 representative coronaviruses from six subgenera, most of which lacking known receptors. Notably, a pan-sarbecovirus CVR supported entry of various sarbecoviruses, as well as propagation of a replicable HKU3 pseudovirus and the authentic strain RsHuB2019A3. Through combining an HKU5-specific CVR with reverse genetics, we successfully rescued and cultured wild-type and fluorescence protein-incorporated HKU5, a receptor-unidentified merbecovirus. Our study demonstrated the great potential of CVR strategy in establishing native receptor-independent infection models, paving the way for studying various viruses that are challenging to culture due to the lack of susceptible cells.