Correction: Differential interactions between human ACE2 and spike RBD of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation (2021) 17:12 (7972-7979) DOI: 10.1021/acs.jctc.1c00965)

In the original article, our pulling simulations were performed by applying a pulling force to the centers of mass (COM) of Cα for both human ACE2 and RBD of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern spike (S) proteins. Depending on how the atom selections are made, the force profile can slightly vary when the two proteins are about to entirely dissociate, especially if there are flexible loop structures. When the forces in the force profile were calculated in the original version, the COMs were determined on the basis of heavy atoms. To avoid confusion, we corrected the force profile (Figure 1) and TOC Graphic upon selection of C for both proteins. In addition, since both comparisons of binding affinity between simulations and experiments (Figure 4) and linear regression (Figure S7) were obtained from the maximum force of the force profiles, the corresponding corrections were made in Figure 4 and Figure S7. Please note that the overall trend and our findings are the same (i.e., Alpha and Epsilon variants show the highest and lowest forces in the maximum force from the force profiles, respectively, and the Delta variant exhibits stronger forces than other variants at a relatively far distance between RBD-ACE2), but now forces are slightly decreased after 60 A. Thus, none of our findings and conclusions are affected.