The 21st century has witnessed three outbreaks of coronavirus (CoVs) infections caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)‐CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)‐CoV, and SARS‐CoV‐2. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), caused by SARS‐CoV‐2, spreads rapidly and since the discovery of the first COVID‐19 infection in December 2019, has caused 1.2 million deaths worldwide and 226,777 deaths in the United States alone. The high amino acid similarity between SARS‐CoV and SARS‐CoV‐2 viral proteins supports testing therapeutic molecules that were designed to treat SARS infections during the 2003 epidemic. In this review, we provide information on possible COVID‐19 treatment strategies that act via inhibition of the two essential proteins of the virus, 3C‐like protease (3CL^pro) or papain‐like protease (PL^pro).

中文翻译：

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以 SARS-CoV-2 病毒蛋白酶为靶点作为治疗 COVID-19 的治疗策略


21 世纪见证了由严重急性呼吸综合征 (SARS)-CoV、中东呼吸综合征 (MERS)-CoV 和 SARS-CoV-2 引起的三场冠状病毒 (CoV) 感染爆发。由 SARS-CoV-2 引起的 2019 冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 迅速传播，自 2019 年 12 月发现首例 COVID-19 感染以来，已导致全球 120 万人死亡，仅在美国就有 226,777 人死亡。 SARS-CoV 和 SARS-CoV-2 病毒蛋白之间的高度氨基酸相似性支持测试旨在治疗 2003 年流行期间 SARS 感染的治疗分子。在这篇综述中，我们提供了有关可能的 COVID-19 治疗策略的信息，这些策略通过抑制病毒的两种必需蛋白，即 3C 样蛋白酶 (3CL ^pro ) 或木瓜蛋白酶样蛋白酶 (PL ^pro ) 来发挥作用。