The role and significance of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 peptides in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019

Since the end of 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) posed a serious threat to human health and life. Therefore, the discovery of drugs that can effectively prevent and treat COVID-19 is urgently warranted. In this article, the role and significance of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 in drug development and the treatment of COVID-19 are discussed. It was found that the binding of ACE2 to SARS-CoV-2-RBD involved two core regions (31st and 353rd lysine) and 20 amino acids of the ACE2 protein. The mutation of these amino acids could lead to a great change of the binding ability of ACE2 and SARS-CoV-2-RBD. This information was important for us to find more efficient ACE2 peptides to block the 2019-nCoV infection. So during this study, we summarized the role of ACE2 in the regulation of 2019-nCoV infection and stress, and hypothesized that the development and optimization of ACE2 peptide can effectively block 2019-nCoV infection and reliably treat the COVID-19.