Researchers have identified two sugar-binding proteins that impede the viral entry of circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants. The team, spearheaded by researchers at IMBA—Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences—may have found the "Achilles' heel" of the virus, with potential for pan-variant therapeutic interventions. The findings are now published in the EMBO Journal. ...The importance of the S protein for the survival and spread of the virus dictates the presence of a camouflage mechanism. Hence, the virus uses so-called glycosylation as a cloaking mechanism to form a sugar coat at specific sites of the Spike protein in order to...