The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world. Its causative virus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), enters human cells through the physical interaction between the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of its spike protein and the human cell receptor ACE2. Here, we provide a novel way of understanding coronavirus spike proteins, connecting their nanomechanical features, specifically their vibrational spectrum and quantitative measures of mobility, with virus lethality and infection rate. The key result of our work is that both the overall flexibility of upward RBD and the mobility ratio of RBDs in different conformations represent two significant factors that show a positive scaling with virus lethality and an inverse correlation with the infection rate. Our analysis shows that epidemiological virus properties can be linked directly to pure nanomechanical, vibrational aspects, offering an alternative way of screening new viruses and mutations, and potentially exploring novel ways to prevent infections from occurring.

新型冠状病毒病2019（COVID-19）在世界范围内迅速传播。其致病性病毒，严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2），通过其刺突蛋白的受体结合域（RBD）与人类细胞受体ACE2之间的物理相互作用进入人类细胞。在这里，我们提供了一种了解冠状病毒刺突蛋白的新颖方法，将它们的纳米力学特征（特别是其振动光谱和流动性的定量测量）与病毒致死率和感染率联系起来。我们工作的关键结果是，向上RBD的总体灵活性和不同构象中RBD的迁移率都代表了两个重要因素，这些因素显示出与病毒致死率呈正比例关系，与感染率呈负相关关系。