Özçelik, Cemile ElifAraz, Cemre ZekiyeYılmaz, ÖzgürGülyüz, SevgiÖzdamar, PınarSalmanlı, EzgiÖzkul, AykutŞeker, Urartu Özgür Şafak2025-03-022025-03-022024-03-212575-9108https://hdl.handle.net/11693/117036The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the need for therapeutic and pharmaceutical molecule development in a short time with different approaches. Although boosting immunological memory by vaccination was the quickest and robust strategy, still medication is required for the immediate treatment of a patient. A popular approach is the mining of new therapeutic molecules. Peptide-based drug candidates are also becoming a popular avenue. To target whole pathogenic viral agents, peptide libraries can be employed. With this motivation, we have used the 12mer M13 phage display library for selecting SARS-CoV-2 targeting peptides as potential neutralizing molecules to prevent viral infections. Panning was applied with four iterative cycles to select SARS-CoV-2 targeting phage particles displaying 12-amino acid-long peptides. Randomly selected peptide sequences were synthesized by a solid-state peptide synthesis method. Later, selected peptides were analyzed by the quartz crystal microbalance method to characterize their molecular interaction with SARS-CoV-2's S protein. Finally, the neutralization activity of the selected peptides was probed with an in-house enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The results showed that scpep3, scpep8, and scpep10 peptides have both binding and neutralizing capacity for S1 protein as a candidate for therapeutic molecule. The results of this study have a translational potential with future in vivo and human studies.EnglishCC BY 4.0 (Attribution 4.0 International Deed)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/SARS-CoV-2COVID-19Phage display libraryEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assayPeptide-based therapeuticsBiotechnological drug developmentArticle10.1021/acsptsci.3c00317