Targeting the Coronavirus Nucleocapsid Protein through GSK-3 Inhibition

The coronaviruses responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV), COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV), and other coronavirus infections express a nucleocapsid protein (N) that is essential for viral replication, transcription, and virion assembly. Phosphorylation of N from SARS-CoV by glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK-3) is required for its function and inhibition of GSK-3 with lithium impairs N phosphorylation, viral transcription, and replication. Here we report that the SARS-CoV-2 N protein contains GSK-3 consensus sequences and that this motif is conserved in diverse coronaviruses, despite limited overall sequence conservation, raising the possibility that SARS- CoV-2 may be sensitive to GSK-3 inhibitors including lithium. We conducted a retrospective analysis of lithium use in patients from three major health systems who were PCR tested for SARS-CoV-2. We found that patients taking lithium have a significantly reduced risk of COVID- 19 (odds ratio = 0.51 [0.34 - 0.76], p = 0.001). We also show that the SARS-CoV-2 N protein is phosphorylated by GSK-3. Knockout of GSK3A and GSK3B demonstrates that GSK-3 is essential for N phosphorylation. Alternative GSK-3 inhibitors block N phosphorylation and impair replication in SARS-CoV-2 infected lung epithelial cells in a cell-type dependent manner. Targeting GSK-3 may therefore provide a new approach to treat COVID-19 and future coronavirus outbreaks.