Structural plasticity of SARS-CoV-2 3CL M^pro active site cavity revealed by room temperature X-ray crystallography

The COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has become a pandemic health crisis. An attractive target for antiviral inhibitors is the main protease 3CL M^pro due to its essential role in processing the polyproteins translated from viral RNA. Here we report the room temperature X-ray structure of unliganded SARS-CoV-2 3CL M^pro, revealing the ligand-free structure of the active site and the conformation of the catalytic site cavity at near-physiological temperature. Comparison with previously reported low-temperature ligand-free and inhibitor-bound structures suggest that the room temperature structure may provide more relevant information at physiological temperatures for aiding in molecular docking studies.